Warden Hunt
by Vodyanoi
Summary: Eight years ago, the Warden saved the world and vanished forever. Ariane and Finn, the last two people to see him alive, want him to save it again. Post Dragon Age II, with elements from Witch Hunt. M!Cousland/Morrigan, eventual Ariane/Finn.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer:

The Dragon Age universe and all of its characters are property of Bioware. I do not own any of these characters or locations.

* * *

Ariane scowled. 'I don't understand why I need to be here. I explained everything to the Templars years ago.'

The woman smiled gently, and waved a hand to indicate the emblem on her black lacquered breastplate. A golden eye, surrounded by a sunburst. 'As you can see, you are not here at the request of the Templars.' She leaned forward. Her face was remarkably soft, in sharp contrast to her heavy armour. 'I was hoping we could go through it again.'

Ariane sighed. 'Do I really have a choice?'

The woman just smiled.

* * *

'I just want to make it clear that I will tell you absolutely anything you want. I really want to help here. If there's anything I can do-'

Cassandra closed her eyes and massaged her temples. 'Thank you, Aldebrant. I think you've made that rather clear.'

Finn fidgeted in his seat, scratching the grimy metal armrests with a fingernail. 'I mean, I told the Templars everything as soon as I got back, and Ariane agreed on everything. But I know you might want to confirm for your own records. Seeker. Did- did the Templars mention that I came right back, by the way?'

The dark-haired Seeker leaned back in her own chair. The dingy basement provided by the Lothering Chantry for interviews was small and stiflingly hot. The light from a lone torch played across the table that was, besides the two chairs, it's only furnishing. Under its flickering light, the words on the densely inked pages in front of her were difficult to make out, but one appeared so often as to be clear to Finn even in the semi-darkness. _Warden._

Her eyes followed his and she casually rested a black-armoured arm on the table, obscuring his view of the pages. 'The Templars' version may have been... flawed.', she said tersely. 'Begin as early as you can and leave nothing out. We will know if you do.'

'So can you actually do that? Tell if people are lying, I mean. And resist blood magic and erase memories and the like. I read about something like that once, but a lot of it seemed a bit improbable. But with texts that old it's difficult to find anything to cross-reference so who knows, right? There was one Orlesian book in the library which was a bit hard to make out but I tried cleaning up a few of the images and some of the stories were just mad, then there was another one which wouldn't even open. I tried for ages and eventually it sort of exploded at me so I-' He caught the expression on the Seeker's face and reflexively clapped a hand over his mouth.

'From. The. Beginning.', she repeated, apparently having some difficulty unclenching her teeth.

''s interesting though...' mumbled Finn, avoiding eye contact.

Cassandra closed her eyes again, exhaling slowly. At least this was better than the dwarf.

* * *

'We were both looking for the witch,' Ariane explained. 'I found him outside a cottage in the Wilds, fighting a few stray darkspawn.'

Stray darkspawn hadn't seemed like an issue at the time – a reminder of the all-too-recent Blight, but also of the camaraderie that had thrown it back. They hadn't known yet that the darkspawn would continue to grow bolder in the Wilds, archdemon or no.

Ariane hadn't known that one would eventually kill the hunter she had promised herself to. Banic had been as strong as she was, and he hadn't been able to fight the taint. She was wiser now.

The red-haired Seeker tilted her head curiously. 'Morrigan was in this cottage?'

'No, she wasn't there.' The details were coming back to Ariane. The cottage had looked so innocent, like something from a children's story. Those familiar with the surrounding land, however, knew of the real live witch hiding inside. 'The cottage was Asha'bellanar's – the Witch of the Wilds. Morrigan's mother. Those who believed the stories would tell you that she would kill any who approached.'

The other woman smiled. 'There is often much to be learned from such tales. Did you believe them?'

Ariane studied her hands. The marks of her blood writing traced circles and swirls around her fingers, telling the stories of the Dalish. Those that remained, anyways. 'The book was very important. The one that Morrigan stole. I was willing to risk my life to get it back.' She looked up, willing the Seeker to understand. 'It was a relic of my people and could never be replaced. So few care for our history anymore, and the Keeper was flattered by her interest when she asked to see it. We trusted her, and she stole what was most important to us.'

The Seeker stared back, unblinking. 'Yes. That certainly sounds like the Morrigan I knew.'

* * *

'I saw him in the library.' Finn recalled, closing his eyes to summon the image behind his eyelids.' I thought it was odd. Not that I was in the library, I mean. I'm always in the library. Or, well, I was.' He opened his eyes and studied the floor, fighting the lump in his throat. 'Back when there was a library to be in.'

'The Warden,' prompted Cassandra, tapping her foot.

'Right. Well, you normally only see mages and Templars around the Circle. We don't get many visitors. Or we didn't, I suppose', he corrected, wincing. Using the past tense was still difficult. 'So I suppose he stuck out.'

Truthfully, the Warden would have stuck out anywhere. Dressed in plate, holding a shield bearing the Cousland crest and accompanied by a dirty great Mabari and a beautiful, heavily armed Dalish warrior, the Warden had looked faintly ridiculous wandering the stacks with a slight frown of concentration on his face. Not that Finn would have dared laugh at someone with that many weapons. His first instinct had been to hide and hope that this aberration in the daily routine of the Circle went away. Finn had been used to having the thick walls of the Tower, a considerable amount of water and the vigilance of the Templars between him and the unpredictable, unordered real world. It seemed almost offensive to see such blatant evidence of it wandering about, poring over catalogues and looking a little lost.

'So you saw the Warden and spoke to him,' Cassandra said. 'Or did he approach you?' Her expression suggested that it made little difference to her.

'No, it was me,' said Finn hastily, trying to bring his thoughts back on track. 'He was looking at books and there was one he was breaking so I told him to stop.'

Cassandra raised an eyebrow. 'He was trying to destroy a book? In the Circle library?'

'Not trying. He was just... bending it. A bit. It was a very old book...' Finn finished lamely, seeing Cassandra's dubious expression. 'Anyways, it was a very specific one. On Elvhen artifacts, the only known copy. So he explained what he was looking for, and I knew something about it, so I took him to speak to Eleni Zinovia in the basement-'

'The Tevinter statue.', the Seeker interrupted, glancing down at the pages in front of her. 'You spoke to this statue often?'

'Well, yeah.' Finn answered. 'Only when Hadley would let me down there,' he added hastily. 'It was a quiet place to read, and if I was translating something difficult she could help occasionally. Or provide some context for a historical account. Things like that.'

Cassandra narrowed her eyes. 'According to the Circle's records, the statue was known for making prophecies.' She shuffled her papers, tapping the bottoms on the scored surface of the table to even them. 'Did it tell the Warden anything of the future?'

Finn's eyes returned to his boots. 'This floor is really kind of filthy,' he mused, toeing the table leg.

The Seeker didn't blink. 'The statue, mage.'

'It said... something about a prison, and darkness. I can't remember it very well.', Finn answered, hearing how hollow the lie sounded as soon as he said it. His own predilection for memory aside, he couldn't have forgotten his final conversation with Eleni if he had tried. _The prison is breached. I see the encroaching darkness. The ... the shadow will consume all..._ 'She also said I would never speak to her again,' he added, hoping to change the subject. 'I... sort of thought it meant I was going to die. I was a bit upset at the time.' Slight understatement. If he remembered correctly he had shrieked like a girl.

Cassandra sighed, glancing back at her parchments. The gold emblem on her chest gleamed. 'And yet you are noticeably alive. So the statue's prophecies were inaccurate.' Although her face remained expressionless, he could swear the Seeker sounded almost relieved.

Finn shook his head. 'No, she was right. While I was gone, some rebel mages in the Starkhaven Circle blew up their phylactery chamber. After the Templars heard about that, none of us were allowed in the basement – in case we got any ideas. So you see, we never did speak again.'

* * *

Ariane's back was beginning to cramp. She hoped that Dog was doing alright, wherever the Seekers had taken him. Down in the stuffy cellar room, it was impossible to tell how much time had passed. It had probably been hours, and felt like days.

She pushed herself up and paced around the small room, running her hand along the rough walls. Her fingers came up blackened. The pretty red-haired Seeker had departed with no explanation, simply saying that she would return soon. Apparently these shemlan had a slightly unusual estimation of what 'soon' meant. How long was she expected to wait?

She perched on the table, crossing her legs. With a sigh, she tried to picture what her clan must be doing right now. They had promised to wait for her, of course, but it was possible that they wouldn't be able to. The Templars, without the Chantry to keep them in line, had grown bolder, and the unspoken law that protected the mages among the Dalish no longer seemed to apply. Templars had already taken their Keeper, supposedly for 'questioning'. It had been all they could manage to hide the Keeper's young apprentice.

They would be hunting now, she imagined, although they would be nowhere near as successful as when she led the hunt. She cringed slightly at the her vanity. More often than not it was true, though. She was still the clan's undisputed best hunter, and she had a place no matter where the clan – her family – settled. The thought was comforting, even if her place was somewhat hard to see here in this dim Chantry cellar.

The minutes passed agonizingly slowly. Ariane's stomach growled angrily and she wished the Seekers had not taken her pack. They took my weapons, too, she thought. And my dog. She eyed the door once more. At first she had taken it for wood, but on this side she could see that it was braced with heavy black iron, and bore a complicated lock and a heavy handle. She considered trying it to see if it was locked, then realized that she might not want to know the answer.

With a groan the door swung open, making her jump. The Seeker sidestepped in, holding a cup in either hand. Her armour clinked as she offered one to Ariane. 'I thought you might be thirsty.' She didn't look remotely alarmed to see Ariane on the table.

Ariane cautiously took the mug, wondering if the Seeker intended to intoxicate her in the hoped of wringing out information. She raised it to her mouth, sniffing it cautiously. Water. Paranoid, she chided herself. Yes, this order seemed insane, but that was hardly unusual for humans. Still, she ignored the protest of her dry throat and put the cup down without tasting it. The Seeker, sitting back down, pretended not to notice.

'So.', said the Seeker, sipping at her own water. 'Shall we resume? You were explaining how you found a shard of the Eluvian.' Her blue eyes were calm over the rim of the mug.

Ariane sighed, dropping her legs over the edge of the table and standing. 'A different Eluvian,' she explained, returning to her seat. 'Finn thought he could find the whole one if he could see the broken one.'

The Seeker tucked a stray red braid behind her ear. 'I had thought that these artifacts rare. The Warden knew where to find another?'

'No.', Ariane answered. 'I told him. Another clan, the Sabraes, had encountered it in ruins, deep in the Brecilian forest. '

The Seeker smiled. 'I have seen such ruins. Long ago. I remember that they were beautiful, but I wouldn't have called them safe.'

'They weren't. We were attacked.' Ariane considered explaining what they had seen, the Elvhen spirits that still roamed the place, protecting the secrets inside, but decided against it. She wouldn't understand. And then I would have to admit that the spirits of my ancestors didn't consider me worthy of the place, a smaller voice added. She quashed the thought and looked back at her interviewer. 'We found the Eluvian though. Broken, as I had been told. But it worked.'

'I have the feeling you're leaving out much of the danger,' said the Seeker, still smiling. She didn't sound angry.

Ariane shrugged. 'I wasn't worried. I can handle myself, and so could the Warden. The mage looked a bit like he wanted to hide under a rock, but I think he wanted to see the ruins almost as much as I did.'

' And besides,' the elf added, more to herself than anyone, 'it was dangerous, but the Warden needed us.'

Ir abla, she thought, I don't even know which of us I'm trying to convince anymore.

* * *

'So you performed this scrying ritual.' Cassandra's face was unreadable. 'While your cohorts dealt with the danger.'

'Um,' said Finn. 'Sort of?' Why did everything he said to the Seeker come out as a question? He tried again. 'Well, there were those guardians – the spirits – and I needed to concentrate so that nothing went wrong, so-'

'Go wrong.' Cassandra repeated. 'There was a risk of failure.' We're mirror images, Finn realized absently. Even questions are statements when she says them. 'The ritual was dangerous then.'

'No!' Finn corrected. 'I mean yes, there's always a risk of failure, but – it wasn't dangerous...' he trailed off. Despite his best efforts he was fidgeting again, looping the ends of his sleeves around his fingers. Cassandra's face was reminescent of some of the more terrifying religious icons he had seen. Did they actually give lessons for that expression in the Seekers? Maybe that was what was in that stupid book. 'It was just scrying,' he said finally, 'like we do in the Circle. Did. It was fine. And it did work.'

The Seeker remained unimpressed. 'So is 'it worked' is usually sufficient reason for these magical experiments?' She continued before he had a chance to inhale to defend himself. 'The Tevinters told you that there were two components required to find the artifact. What of the other?'

'Yes we needed - the Tevinters didn't _tell_ me,' Finn objected, 'it was just something I read... I mean, the scroll was Tevinter, but I had to translate it and it took ages and even so I'm not sure how accurate it was, and I probably know more about it than anyone else in the Circle does. _Did_.', he added at her raised eyebrow. 'But the point is,' he soldiered on, realizing at the same time that he no longer had any idea what his point had been, 'that it wasn't the Tevinters or anyone else's idea.'

'It was your idea, then.' The Seeker's tone was frosty. 'That you came up with based on the magisters research. Which you studied for, what was it? Ages.'

'But... it was interesting. That wasn't it. You weren't-' Finn stopped himself, realizing that the Seeker had indeed been listening - much more closely than he had. During a particularly difficult translation, Finn had sometimes thought of language as a tapestry, with a thousand interwoven threads that made sense only when seen wound together. His own words seemed intent on winding themselves into a noose. 'The Warden agreed..?', he offered, wincing at the return of the upwards intonation. Even his mouth didn't believe him.

'Tell me what happened at the Thaig. You were searching for these lanterns.'

'Lights. The Lights of Arlathan, yes. Remnants of the Elvhen ruins buried underneath the Thaig. They must have been there for centuries.' Finn wistfully remembered the glowing lights and shadowy guardians, incongruous in the crumbling dwarven ruins. It would have almost been worth the mud to go back.

'The inhabitants of the Thaig had left these artefacts undisturbed. That seems unlikely.'

'It was brilliant actually,' said Finn, glad to be back on a topic he could talk easily about. Not knowing the right answer to a question was an uncomfortable experience for him, and had been happening all too often in this conversation. 'The ancient elves were terribly clever with their magic. They set up a ward based on their own set of qualifications, which relied on both a physical match and an ideological understanding... You had to be worthy,' he said, seeing the Seeker's eyes glaze over. The specifics were probably best saved for an academic situation. He felt slightly disappointed anyways. 'The dwarves couldn't see the lights because they weren't what the ancients considered worthy.'

'And the Warden was worthy of these Lights?' Cassandra's interest picked up, audible under her cold tone. 'What was the reason?'

'It wasn't the Warden. Not me, either,' Finn added, seeing the Seeker's dubious expression. 'The only people the ancients would consider worthy was one of their own. As far as the ancients were concerned, we were both just human trespassers. Ariane was one of the Dalish, so physically she was much closer. If you combined her physical essence with the background knowledge I already had, you could sort of synthesize an ancient - as far as the magic was concerned, anyways. So that's what we did.'

The Seeker pushed herself up, slowly, leaning against the table to balance out the weight of her armour. A muscle in her jaw flexed. Probably atrophied from lack of smiling. Standing, she placed her documents on the table and leaned against the wall. 'So. You used this magic and a 'physical essence'. What would that be, then. Hair?' Her voice rejected the possibility. 'Something else, perhaps.'

Finn felt the colour drain from his face. 'No, well... I mean it wasn't anything...' It was clever, he wanted to say. It was a smart thing to think of. Do I get any approval for that? 'Is there a bathroom I could use?' was what came out instead.

'This magic came from another Tevinter scroll you translated, I suppose. Or was it from the statue?' Cassandra was pacing the narrow room now, arms folded. The torchlight distorted her shadow grotesquely on the wall.

'Yes, but not like that. I mean, yes it was Tevinter, and I did translate it, but it wasn't dangerous or anything.' Finn started to stand. 'Um, if it's alright I'm just going to go look for the-'

The Seeker's mail-clad hand was on his shoulder before he could register her moving, gripping like a vice. She shoved him back into his seat, his legs giving out under him.

'We are not done talking.' Her voice was steely, the Nevarran accent more pronounced without the pretence of warmth. Finn's sleeve had caught on the edge of the chair, and with a wave of nausea he wondered how he had mistaken the rusted manacles attached for armrests.

'It wasn't blood magic,' he blurted out before he could stop himself. 'I mean, there was blood and magic at the same time, but there were no demons and it didn't hurt anyone. It was like the phylacteries, just using blood to find something. The Warden agreed. And... and...' The mage eyed the heavily scratched and dented table and willed his voice to stop cracking.

The Seeker leaned back against the door. 'And it worked.' she finished, crossing her arms over the emblem on her chest. Her face was impassable as ever, but at last she sounded satisfied.

* * *

Thank you so much for reading! I am very new to writing, so if you have time, please leave me some concrit and I will love you forever. I really want to improve!

If anyone has a bit more time (and a lot of patience), I would absolutely love a beta for this story. I'm still looking and I'm worried about some of my canon details being off (as well as my writing needing work).


	2. Chapter 2

Thank-you very much to cruelflames and CommanderHawke667 for reviewing/favouriting!

I was looking over this chapter and realized it was a bit of a beast, so I've split it into two pieces. If this turns out to be easier on the eyes, I'll go back over the fic and make all the chapters shorter - I think a few of them around the end were crazy long.

Again, thank you for reading, and please add some concrit if you have time!

* * *

This is going to be endless, Ariane realized. The story wasn't even finished and it had been hours. And afterwards there would probably be more questions. She stretched her stiff legs and suppressed a yawn.

'Dragon cultists?' the red-haired woman asked, blue eyes widening. 'I had not thought they strayed out of the mountains.'

Ariane shrugged. 'Mountains, wastes... anywhere unpopular with the sane. They seem to have something against greenery.' The cultists had disturbed her at the time, although she would never admit it. They had appeared so alien and mindlessly aggressive - but it was easy to forget living among the Dalish that by the standards of the rest of Thedas, the nomadic elves were a fringe group as well. Still, at least the Dalish picked more attractive places to set up camp.

'Compared to some of the other things we fought, they weren't that tough.' That, at least, was true. The cultist warriors had been fierce but undisciplined. Many of them had broken and ran after the first lot were cut down. A berserk wizard hurling fire had briefly seemed like a real threat, but Finn had done something which killed his fellow mage in a heartbeat. Finn had then promptly fainted, partially from exertion and partially from surprise. Between herself, Dog, and the Warden, the remaining non-magical assailants were dispatched with relative ease.

The Seeker smiled, resting her chin in her hand. 'I've met dragon-worshippers too, you know. They were hardly kittens.'

Ariane smiled back despite herself. Inquisitor or not, she was finding this particular human difficult to hate. 'Finn called them 'a bit unfriendly'. At least, until we had the vartarrell to compare them too. They looked distinctly more kittenish after that.'

The Seeker frowned. 'Vartarrell? A dragon?'

'I've heard humans call them 'land striders'', said Ariane, tilting her chair back onto two legs to stretch out her feet. She wasn't used to sitting still this long. 'Supposedly they're ancient elven guardians of powerful relics. There hasn't been one sighted in hundreds of years. At least,' she added, settling her chair back down with a thunk, 'not by what you humans call a 'reliable source''.

The Seeker grinned. 'Sounds dangerous.'

Ariane closed her eyes. 'Very big. It was almost a shame to have to kill it.' Almost. The thing had been terrifying. Beautiful, in a strange lonely sort of way, but the awe had worn off around the second time it had nearly decapitated her.

'And this strider, it was guarding the Eluvian? What happened when you got there?'

Ariane sighed. She had tried for years to reconcile what had happened next with everything before. It still grated. 'The witch- Morrigan- was there. She was waiting for us.' The dark-haired woman had been beautiful even from a distance. She had been pacing impatiently, and when she saw the Warden she had looked exasperated, as though he had been late for an engagement. When she ran her pale fingers along the glowing surface of the mirror it had sparked and crackled with electricity, and her yellow hawk-eyes had shone in the dark like an animal's.

'I wanted to go take back my book, and Finn wanted to see what she had done to the mirror to wake it up like that. But the Warden told us to stay back, that he'd speak to her for us.' She recalled Cousland's voice, how it had gone from amiable and friendly to dull and angry at the sight of the witch. Dog had whined and pulled when he walked away, as if he had known what was coming. 'He was going to ask her...' She caught the Seeker's eye and her voice trailed off, unsure of how much the human knew.

'He was going to ask about his child,' the other woman finished. Ariane nodded, feeling oddly embarrassed. 'And then?'

'And... Well, you know the rest.' Ariane had difficulty putting what she had seen into words. A look from the Seeker prompted her to continue. 'I couldn't hear all of what was said. But he did ask after his child, and she said it was safe. And then... he asked to go with her.' She remembered Finn's panicky whispered questions, Dog's despairing whimper. 'She refused him, at first, and then they stepped into the mirror. And it went dark.' She shrugged again, as though the nonchalant gesture would make her feel more at ease. 'Just like I'm sure you heard.'

The Seeker blinked rapidly in the dim light. Her face seemed paler than before. 'And the mirror would not work again?', she asked, her accented voice steadier than her hands.

'No. At least, not without knowing how she did it. Finn looked, but he said without the book it was impossible to tell.' She cocked her head to the side, brushing her long brown hair behind her shoulders. 'If you don't mind me asking, how did you know him? The Warden?'

The other woman flinched, then sighed. 'We travelled together, during the Blight,' she said after a pause. 'I met him almost ten years ago now, but it's stayed with me.' She smiled distantly. 'I've told the story so many times since, of the man who stopped the Blight. It's strange to speak to someone who knew him as well.'

Ariane nodded. 'I understand what you mean.' She hadn't known the Warden long; not, she suspected, as long as this woman had. But years later she remembered the feeling of being around him, how everything - the book, the history of her people - had seemed so much closer. 'It didn't even feel like meeting him,' she said, mostly to herself. 'It was like he already knew where we were, and he just had to stop by and collect us. And then we could find the witch and the mirror and the book.' Her throat tightened. 'Then... I suppose he was done with us.' She was getting maudlin. It was hard not to feel it though.

'You did find who you were seeking', the Seeker said softly. 'The Warden did what he said. And he took your mage friend to the mirror, and he got the book from Morrigan.'

'The book.' Ariane fought back a giggle. It was so awful it was funny. 'He didn't get the book.' Hero in the face of everything, until his true love and her cleavage showed up. 'He didn't even ask.'

* * *

There must have been a moment, Finn thought, where this stopped being an interview and became an interrogation. Somehow I missed it.

To be fair, he had missed a lot of things before. When he had finally made it back to the Circle Tower eight years before, dazed and exhausted, he had been too happy to see somewhere clean to ask why the basement was off-limits.

He had been too relieved when the teasing he was used to receiving from the other mages dissipated to worry that been replaced instead with dark mutterings about the templars and talk of tensions in the Free Marches. When the letters from his parents had stopped, he had continued to dutifully write up a summary of his week and drop it off in the box to be mailed. It had been two months before Hadley had let him know that nothing was being mailed anymore. Hadley had seemed genuinely sorry, too, so Finn had told him that it was okay.

A few weeks after that, Hadley was gone too, along with several of the Templars Finn had known since he was a child. Their replacements would only say that the old Templars had been recentralized. Finn had gone back to the library.

When mages had started disappearing, he had assumed that they had gone off on research, or maybe been recruited into the army. The lack of a war had seemed secondary. The army always had something to fight, right? Otherwise they would get bored.

Someone had finally told him that mages had been running away to join the resistance, but he had found a stash of copied elven documents in a back corner of the library, and that had seemed more pressing. Besides, what was there to resist? Leaving the tower would have meant... _leaving the tower_, and that in itself was too frightening to be considered. Especially when there was translation to be done.

Of course, he had left, eventually. When news of the battle in Kirkwall had arrived, it had been too much for even him to ignore. The resistance had made it clear they intended to retake the Circle Tower. Without instruction from their order, the remaining Templars had left, either splitting off on their own or making for the rebuilt temple in Lothering. The few mages who had stayed went with them. Finn remembered standing in the empty library, eyes closed, wondering how this could ever have happened. Looking back it was much clearer.

Cassandra tapped her armoured fingers impatiently, the metal making a hollow clunk on the surface of the table. 'You admitted to knowing the rogue mage Anders before he was a Warden.' Her tone made it clear just how damning this was.

'Yeah, I knew him. Not well, I mean,' he added hastily. 'We weren't friends or anything. I mean, I didn't hate him or anything, but...'

'Did he ever speak of his plans to eliminate the Chantry?' Cassandra interrupted.

'He didn't want that.' Finn objected. Seeing her raised eyebrows, he continued. 'I mean, I don't think he wanted the Chantry gone, he really believed... he was more religious than he let on. He just didn't think the Chantry should interfere with the mages. But...'

'But?'

'Something must have made him change.' Finn remembered Anders, although it had been almost ten years since he had seen the other mage. Anders had arrived at the Circle unusually old, at almost thirteen, having avoided notice for several years before being turned in. His irreverence for the Templars and easy sense of humour had made him immediately popular among the other apprentices. Finn himself had been fascinated by Anders desire to leave the Circle and the watchful eye of the Templars. Practically, however, he had mainly avoided the older boy. He had always suspected Anders had been responsible for the others calling him 'Flora'.

'He was never serious about rebelling, is what I mean. He was serious about escaping – he used to do it all the time, with some mad methods. But I don't think he ever cared enough to really rebel. Something must have changed.'

Cassandra seemed to consider this. 'It sounds like you knew him well.'

Finn shook his head miserably. There seemed to be no point in trying to explain anything. 'Not well. We all knew each other. Back then.'

'Are you still in contact now?' Her tone was flat.

'No!' Finn sat up straight, feeling panicky again. 'Of course not! I heard... He's a terrorist. I would never...'

Cassandra stood up, shuffling her papers. Her face was unreadable. 'I believe we are done here.'

Finn shrank in his chair. 'Okay.'

'You will be returned to the Chantry while we consider what you have said.' She pulled open the heavy iron door. It screeched on its hinges. 'Once a verdict has been reached we will speak again.' She walked out the door without looking back, her metal boots crashing on the stone floor.

'Fuck...' Finn mumbled. It was the most appropriate thing he could think of.


	3. Chapter 3

'Is there anything else?' Ariane thought if she had to go over the story one more time she might go mad. Her feet itched to stand on something other than a stone floor, and she felt as though her eyes would give out from trying to see in that dark room. She needed to get back to the clan.

The Seeker considered this thoughtfully. 'Is there anything else you wanted to say?'

Ariane had a great deal she wanted to say. She wanted to ask why, after so many years of leaving her people alone, the Templars had come for their Keeper, the last access they had to their cultural identity. She wanted to ask why, when there were so many fighting people in Fereldan, they were killing each other instead of the darkspawn that still lurked in the fringes. Ones such as that which had killed Banic. She wanted, most of all, to ask how this woman had known the Warden. Whether he had given any clue to where he might have gone.

Instead she asked, 'What am I supposed to call you? Or is it just Seeker?'

The woman smiled again. A small scar near her mouth looked odd on her sweet face. 'Among the agents of the Divine I am known as Sister Nightingale. But...' She twirled a braid thoughtfully. 'Seeing as we have so much in common, I would like it if you would call me Leliana.'

Ariane frowned. 'We don't have a lot in common.' This woman – Leliana – was more different from herself than she could imagine. Ariane was barely comfortable with the petty squabbles and secrets among the clan members. The idea of intrigue on a national scale – as she was certain this woman dealt with – made her head ache.

'We have the Warden in common,' Leliana pointed out. 'That is a lot, I think.'

Ariane shifted uncomfortably. 'Is Finn here?' she asked suddenly. It had not occurred to her before, but the Seekers would doubtless want to corroborate her story. 'Florian Aldebrant,' she clarified, pronouncing the name carefully. A horrible thought struck her. 'He's... alright, isn't he?' The past few years had not been easy ones for any mage.

Leliana nodded reassuringly. 'He's here. Those who stayed loyal returned to this Chantry with the last Templars, when they left the tower.' She left it unspoken what had happened to those who had not been loyal. Ariane shivered.

A knock came at the door. Leilana rose as the door clanked open. The bright light from the corridor made Ariane squint to make out the newcomer. A taller woman with short dark hair stood in the doorway, clad in the same Seeker plate as Leliana. She carried a sheaf of papers, and looked as though smiling was an entirely forgein concept.

'How did it go?' Leilana asked in her soft voice. The other Seeker shook her head shortly. She dropped the stack of papers on top of Leliana's own documents. Ariane felt suddenly invisible.

'We must speak,' said the dark-haired seeker in a clipped, accented voice. Leliana followed her into the corridor, where Ariane could hear them conversing in hushed tones. She strained to hear, but could only make out scattered words.

'Mage...hiding... not finished...'

'...same report... done here.'

'...suggest... formal trial...'

A chill ran down her spine. Were they talking about her? She couldn't think of anything she'd done that could possibly warrant a trial, even by mad human standards. Maybe it was Finn? The mage had been so nervous and scattered all those years ago. Times must have truly changed if he was a real threat.

Her eyes alighted on the papers in front of her. She leaned forwards to get a better look. Her reading was out of practice, at least when it came to human scripts, so it took a moment to interpret. She felt her heart sink as she scanned the page. Seeker Cassandra – the dark-haired Seeker, she was sure – had painted a fairly damning picture of Finn as a maleficar, and Ariane as her accomplice. The Eluvian had been linked to another, in Kirkwall, owned by a known blood mage and supporter of the mage rebellion. She had even stated that Finn was associated with those who had started the civil war in the Free Marches.

Ariane was desperate to shuffle the pages and see what Leliana had written about her, but she realized that the conversation had quieted and lurched back into her seat. Leliana entered a moment later, her expression sober. She looked questioningly at Ariane's pale face, but only said, 'Thank you for your time, Ariane. You are welcome to leave whenever you wish.'

Ariane's head was still spinning. Clearly there would be no trial for her, which left only Finn. She was certain he couldn't have done anything to justify a Chantry inquisition – but eight years was a long time. 'Is Finn – Florian – free?' She would have to be sure. 'I would like to say hello before I leave,' she said, willing herself to smile.

Leliana smiled back. Ariane couldn't detect any suspicion in her face, but she had never been the best judge of human emotion.

'Only if I may say hello to your Mabari. I had not expected to see him again.'

Ariane nodded, keeping her smile fixed on her face. She stood, ignoring the cramp in her back, and headed into the hallway, past dour-faced Cassandra and up the stairs into the temple proper. Looking at it one would never know that it had been rebuilt after the Blight. The walls looked impassably solid, and the golden details on the alter gleamed. Ariane had never understood why humans felt the need to trap their god in stone buildings. Surely if he had any meaning, he was everywhere, not just inside Chantry walls.

Ariane reclaimed her equipment from one of the temple sisters. After a brief check to ensure both her blades were present, she headed to the door of the Chantry. Dog was waiting outside, his bullish head resting on the floor as he dozed. Twilight had already fallen. She her tongue at him and he lifted his head, barking enthusiastically.

She rubbed his ears affectionately. Dog had been one of the many things Cousland seemed to have left behind when he went after Morrigan. He had never told her the Mabari's name, and it hadn't seemed right to give him a new one. She hadn't even been certain the dog would come with her. When she and Finn had left the cave where the Eluvian had stood, Dog had still been waiting on the rocks, patiently waiting for his master's return. He had come back to her a week later, and had not accepted food or water for days. Finally, he seemed to have accepted her. She still knew he would never really be 'hers'.

'A lady wants to talk to you,' she told him. He looked at her curiously. 'She says she knows you. When you're done, go wait for me at the bridge, alright?' She pointed in the direction of the huge stone bridge which bordered Lothering. She had long ago become used to the fact that Dog clearly understood much of what was said around him. Besides, even if he couldn't find the bridge, he would always be able to find her.

She felt a presence behind her and turned to see Leliana, reaching one hand out confidantly towards Dog. 'Oh, hello!' the Seeker cooed. 'I have missed you so!' Dog sniffed her hand suspiciously, then, after a pause, barked and began to wag his stumpy tail. 'Yes, you are still so handsome!' the Seeker agreed. Suddenly seeming to remember Ariane, Leliana smiled at her. 'Your friend is upstairs, with a few other mages. Just say I said it was alright, they should let you in.' She returned her attention to the Mabari.

'Traitor', Ariane mouthed at Dog. He ignored her, preferring to drool on the Seeker's gauntlet. Gathering her things, Ariane walked back inside the temple and up the stairs. This part of the Chantry looked newer, with less stone and more wood. She reached a wooden landing lit by smoky lamps. A scant few Templars sat around a table in the first room she glanced in. All of them looked distinctly worse for wear. She continued down the hall, seeing a few lost-looking men and women milling about the other doors. Loyal mages, she assumed.

She finally located Finn, in a small room near the end of the wooden hall. The narrow chamber was stacked with books in various states of falling apart, and furnished only with a sagging bedframe. The floor, unlike the slightly grimy state of the hallway, was aggressively clean, and the room was lit with candles instead of smoggy oil lamps. Finn was sitting on the bed, lips moving silently as he read from a leather-bound tome balanced on his crossed legs. He started as she came into the room and looked up in alarm. She lifted her palm in greeting, suddenly unsure of what to say.

He visibly struggled to place her for a moment, then his jaw dropped open. 'Ariane!'

'Hello,' she said, feeling awkward. A quick visual sweep of the room revealed very little that could be of use. She did see a wooden staff leaned against the corner, which she vaguely recognized as the one the mage had been so attached to all those years ago. A bundle of yarn and needled inexplicably poked out of a bag in the corner. Her eyes fixed on a small window on the opposite wall. A plan began to form in her mind.

'I didn't know you were here,' Finn said, still looking shocked. He set the book aside. 'I would have cleaned up...' He gestured at the spotless room.

She smiled despite herself. 'It's fine. Really.'

Finn seemed at something of a loss for words as well. Not something she remembered ever happening to him. He fiddled with his sleeved and smoothed his robe, and finally leaned over and extracted a multicoloured... thingfrom the knitting bag. 'So were they asking you about...' he said, digging around for needles.

'The Warden, yes,' she answered. The small room suddenly felt stifling.

He nodded, eyes slightly unfocused. 'Me too.'

'How did it go?' she made herself ask. Maybe things hadn't been as bad as the Seeker's notes had suggested. She wanted nothing more than to return to her clan as soon as possible, but she wasn't sure she'd be able to forgive herself for leaving Finn here alone.

'Oh. Um. Okay, I think,' he said vaguely, his cheeks colouring. 'So what have you been doing?' he asked, hastily changing the subject.

Ariane's heart sank. Her clan would have to wait. Either they would both leave here or neither of them would. 'Not much, I suppose.' She walked over and opened the tiny window. It's polished glass gleamed, and a rush of cool night air made the candle-flame shiver. 'What are you making?' she asked. Finn's knitting project was completely baffling. It looked vaguely like a wide scarf, but seemed to be about thirty feet long, with at least eight different yarn colours visible.

'Oh,' he said, looking down at the string in his hands as though surprised to see it there. 'Nothing.'

Ariane was suddenly reminded of a halla she had once seen in a pen while her clan was trading with some shemlan farmers. The animal had paced back and forth in the same pattern for so long it had worn grooves in the earth.

'They said I could go,' she said, filling the silence in case anyone was listening. 'I just wanted to say hello.'

Finn smiled distractedly. 'It's nice to see you,' he said, needles still clicking.

'You too,' she said. 'You look... older.' It was true, sort of. Finn's face was still pale and young-looking, dominated by wide hazel eyes, but he seemed taller and lankier since the last time they had met. His clothes remained pathologically neat, but his red hair was dishevelled and the vague smile she recalled had been replaced with a look of sad bewilderment. 'Older' sounded better than all that. Ariane wondered if the years showed on her face, too.

He shrugged. 'It's been eight years, I suppose. No, wait. Seven and a half. Is that right?'

Ariane leaned her head out the hallway, stretching her arms casually. A quick check revealed it was empty. Night had fallen for real now, and stars were appearing in the sky outside the window. It was time to move.

In one motion, she pressed her hand to Finn's mouth and grabbed the weird knitted item out of his hand. 'How fast can you be ready to go?' she hissed. He said something incoherent into her hand, his eyes huge with alarm.

She quickly tied the end of the scarf-object to the leg of the bed, and threw the other end out the window. The staff she seized and bound to her pack with a length of cord. There was no time to collect proper supplies – the Seekers would be wondering where she had gone.

'What?' said Finn, his voice rising in volume. 'What are you- '

She clamped her hand over his mouth again, pulled him forcefully to his feet, and shoved him over to the window. 'We're getting out of here,' she whispered in what she hoped was a reassuring tone. I sound completely psychotic, she realized. Then she shoved him out.

* * *

Thank-you for reading! Again, please let me know if you have any advice. I was planning on getting into a twice-a-week posting schedule with this fic, so the next chapter will be up in a few days.


	4. Chapter 4

Finn landed in a crumpled heap at the base of the wall. Ariane jumped out the window after him. A jolt of pain shot up her calves as she landed, but she managed to keep her balance. After checking that her swords were still in place, she grabbed the mage's arm and wrenched him to his feet.

'There is a door,' he gasped, rubbing the knee he'd landed on. 'It's not so far from the ground. I'm fairly certain you could have used it.'

'Be quiet.' She glanced around. The village was fairly empty this time of night. Lights glowed the windows in the windows of the rebuilt pub, but the streets were clear. Keeping her head down, she started towards the bridge which edged the village. Hopefully Dog would be able to find it in the dark.

Autumn was on its way, and a chill had settled into the air. The moon was a tiny sliver and offered almost no light. Ariane navigated around a wooden fence and towards the cornfield that backed the village. The harvest was still on its way, and the tall corn should provide some cover. No one seemed to have noticed their disappearance yet. Practice had taught her that there was still no sense in being cocky.

'Er. So. How have you been?'

They had reached the cornfield. 'We need to move faster.' She increased her speed to a jog, making him stumble.

'Been fine, Finn, thanks for asking...' he muttered.

Ariane ignored him, searching in the dark for Dog. He should have been at the bridge by now. 'Where are we going?' she asked Finn. The corn stalks slapped her face as she pushed through them, making it itch.

He yanked his arm away from her, looking alarmed. 'Well, seeing as I haven't seen you in eight years and you just made me break out of a building, I sort of thought you knew.'

She stared at him. 'Made you break out of a building? I rescued you! They were going to put you on trial, I heard them!' And mages don't come out of Chantry trials, she added silently. Not these days. Did he really not understand how serious this was?

'Yeah, but...' Finn's voice cracked as he craned his head around to look back at the Chantry. Bits of grass had collected in his red hair from the fall, and his hands were shaking slightly. 'Now they'll think I'm running away!'

'You are,' Ariane snapped. She winced at the harsh sound of her own voice and softened it. 'Come on, I wasn't going to leave you there. They would never have given you a fair trial.' No matter how kind the Seeker Leliana had seemed to her, she had heard stories of what happened to mages who were suspected of blood magic... and that had been before the civil war. Things were bound to be harsher now.

'What? But...' He put a hand to his forehead, shaking his head in disbelief. 'Oh, Maker, I'm going to be an apostate. Oh no, oh no, this can't be happening...'

'Although I'm starting to regret the rescue decision.'

They had reached a ragged-looking scarecrow. She leaned against it, the rough straw scratching her back. Kneeling, she began disentangling Finn's staff from her pack. It would be safer once they were both armed.

Finn paced back and forth, picking straw from his clothes. 'I think... maybe we should turn around,' he said slowly. 'That would probably be best. Yes. I should go back there and...'

Frustration took over. 'Go back? Gods, I remembered you as smart, Finn! Do you pay any attention to the world at all?' A mental image flashed into her mind – the Keeper of her clan, walking away with the Templars. There had been so many of them that resisting wasn't an option, she told herself. Besides, how were we to know the Keeper wouldn't come back? Now she knew better. 'Do you have any idea what would happen if they decided you were a blood mage?' she asked, finally separating the heavy wooden staff from her other equipment.

Finn stared at the proffered staff as though it was a cobra. 'But I'm not! I don't think. Maybe I could just go and explain-'

'Explaining seemed to be working out brilliantly for you, from what I saw.'

'No... But...' His mouth moved silently for a few moments. 'There's nothing else I can do,' he mumbled. He picked up the staff dejectedly and looked back at the lights of Lothering.

'You can leave.' She took his arm again. She had been wandering with the clan her entire life. She needed to remember how strange leaving somewhere familiar must be. 'I know you're not enthusiastic about travelling, so I'll try to get you as far as I can before I return to my clan, alright?'

'Far as you can? To where?'

'I was hoping you'd tell me. Don't you have some family around?'

'I... yes,' he admitted. 'My parents live in Amaranthine. I think.'

'You think? They gave you a name like 'Florian Phineas Horatio' and then didn't keep in touch? I thought you said they didn't hate you.' Ariane remembered how affectionately he had spoken of his parents eight years before. Resignedly, especially when it came to his mother's knitting, but it had been clear how much he loved them.

Finn looked at her in surprise, then smiled shyly. 'You remembered my whole name,' he said, sounding oddly flattered.

Ariane felt herself blushing for some reason. 'It was hard to forget,' she answered, busying herself checking the state of her supplies. 'I think I might have lost a few syllables in there somewhere.' She shifted uncomfortably when he didn't answer. 'Your parents,' she prompted.

He shrugged, the smile falling off his face. 'The Templars stopped letting us read letters a few years ago. And...' He studied his shoes with sudden interest. 'I guess eventually my parents stopped writing. '

Ma serannas, she thought. No wonder he was so out of touch with the state of the land. Even the isolated Dalish had some contact with the outside world. 'I'm sure they'll want to see you. Amaranthine is only a few days off, okay? I can take you there.' It was out of her way, but she could hardly just abandon Finn to the Templars. She would have to hope her clan wasn't forced to move in the meantime. She willed herself not to be frustrated. Or at the very least, not to let it show.

'What if they're not there?' Finn said, sounding panicky. 'I mean... there's a war on, right? What if they've moved, or... or they've gone back to Orlais to see my mum's family, or...'

Ariane frowned. 'Or what?'

'Well... they might not want me. Anymore.'

'They're your parents,' she said gently. 'They gave you ridiculous hats and unpronounceable names. They love you.' At least family was dependable. Her time with the Warden hadn't been easy, and losing Banic had been harder, but she had always known her clan was with her. Surely human families couldn't be that different.

'Yes, but if I'm really an a... apos... not listening to the Chantry anymore, they could get in a lot of trouble. They could be arrested, or have their house taken away, or... Well, me being a mage was always a bit embarrassing, but now it could be dangerous.' He looked down at the staff in his hands, running a finger over the runes. They glowed slightly in response to his touch. 'I don't want to cause any trouble. Things are so...'

'Different,' Ariane said softly.

He sighed, and sat down heavily beside her. His long legs sprawled straight in front of him like a child's. 'Yeah.'

'It'll be okay,' she said. It seemed polite to pretend not to notice that his cheeks were wet. She rummaged around in the pack, finally finding a skin of water and offering it to him. 'The real world can't be that bad.'

Finn managed a strangled smile as he accepted it. 'You don't sound very sure.'

'Well, maybe I've been a bit cut off too,' she admitted. Definitely an understatement. 'The clans usually try to stay out of human politics.' If only the world had allowed them to stay that way. She shrugged. 'I sort of thought all this would blow over eventually. It's easy to get isolated.'

'It is - was - the same in the tower. I think this is the longest time I've been outside in about...' He thought for a moment. 'Five years?'

'Alright, that's...' Ariane frowned. 'A bit terrifying, actually. '

'Might be six.' Finn studied the beautiful stars with an expression of deep mistrust. 'I really wish the sky wasn't so big.' He pulled his knees up to his chin. 'You know, thinking about it I might actually quite like a trial. It would shake things up. Can we go back now?'

Ariane shook her head. No matter the inconvenience, she wasn't letting him return to people who hadn't let him outside in five years. 'We're going to Amaranthine.' She put a hand on his shoulder, willing her arm to be steady. 'It's alright, okay?'

'No, it isn't!' His voice rose in pitch again, and Ariane winced at the noise. 'I've been thinking that for years and years, every time they took something away, it's alright, everything will settle down and be the way it was again.' More tears gathered in his eyes, and he didn't bother to hide them. Water dripped from the forgotten skin in his hands onto the dry earth. 'But it won't. Nothing's alright, it hasn't been since... almost before the Blight.'

He exhaled in a rush, seemingly exhausted. Ariane would have expected herself to feel angry at Finn's display of self-pity. Instead she just felt tired. Forgoing courtesy, she pulled out a handkerchief and offered it to him. They sat in silence for a few moments, listening to the wind in the corn.

'I wish the Warden were here,' Finn said suddenly.

Ariane started chewing a pinky nail, a childhood habit she thought she had long ago abandoned. 'Yeah. Me too.' The thought of what the Warden would have done to anyone who interrogated him was cheering.

'It's a bit stupid, I suppose,' said Finn, with a self-conscious laugh that failed to brighten his sad face. 'I can't see how he could fix it. '

'People would listen to him,' Ariane said dreamily. 'Like they listened during the Blight.' Ten years earlier, the idea of the Dalish, humans and dwarves all working together would have been ludicrous. Somehow the Warden had pulled it off. All of Fereldan's people had actually agreed on something. 'He brought us all together.' Too bad the alliance had only lasted as long as the Warden was there.

Finn smiled, more genuinely this time. 'I guess all we need is an Archdemon, then. That should solve everything.'

Ariane smiled back. 'Right. New mission. Find something so terrible that everyone has to get along. On second thought, it would probably be easier to find the Warden,' she added, remembering the devastation the Blight had entailed. It seemed like bad luck to even joke about such a thing occurring again.

Finn indicated the direction of the town with a jerk of his head. 'What did you tell them? I mean, he was what they wanted to ask about, right?' There was no need to explain which 'he' was being referred to.

'Same as you, probably. That he went through the mirror and he's gone.' Not wanting to lose the slightly cheerier expression on her companion's face, she continued. 'I may have also mentioned that he ditched us with a giant pissed-off guardian, but I've tried not to dwell on that too much.'

'It was an honest mistake!' Finn objected. 'I mean, probably. How would he have known it comes back to life?' Something occurred to him, and his face lit up. 'Oh! I forgot to tell you. I found some sections of your book, the one Flemeth's daughter stole.' He seemed to become aware of his wet sleeve, and rescued the tipping water bag. 'I would have written, but I wasn't allowed, and I didn't know where you were anyways...'

'What?' Ariane had long ago given up any hope of ever seeing the book again. 'Really? Where?'

'Well, not the whole thing,' he corrected quickly, holding out his palms in apology. 'Just some copied sections and I couldn't translate a lot of it, and there was some guesswork figuring out a lot more, but it would seem that an Orlesian scholar recorded and annotated some sections meaning to study the script and while she couldn't quite discern the content the copies-'

'Bloody humans,' Ariane muttered. 'Never stop borrowing our books. Oh, I didn't mean you,' she added, seeing Finn's wounded expression.

'But I remembered that it was important to your clan, so I copied out and translated what I could.' Talking about books had a visible effect on Finn. Some colour had returned to his face, and his voice sounded surer.

'For me?' Ariane asked in surprise. She tucked a lock of brown hair behind her long ear.

'Um. Yes.' Finn looked embarrassed now. 'Well, there wasn't a lot going on in the tower. Nothing exciting or horrifying like looking for the Eluvian, anyways.' His face became downcast again. 'It's all in the tower library though, so it's sort of a null point. I'm not allowed in there anymore, since the Templars cleared out.' He shrugged. 'It's all occupied by rebels now, I suppose.'

Ariane tried to mask her disappointment that the book was out of reach. 'That must have been harsh.' She had met Finn in that library. It had seemed like his natural environment.

'Awful,' he said gloomily. 'Nothing to read. You have no idea.'

'Did the Seekers take the copy?' she asked, trying not to sound too eager. She didn't want to get her hopes up, but the loss of the Keeper had been an enormous blow to the clan. Maybe the return of the book could get their spirits up again. 'Maybe I could request it back from the Chantry. It is ours.' Not that they usually cared about details like that.

'I... I didn't tell them, actually,' Finn said hesitantly. 'Well, I didn't think they'd care. Since the Eluvian is broken, the rituals aren't much good to them.' He frowned. 'Do you think I should have told them? I could go back and say-'

Ariane shook her head firmly. Something was buzzing at the back of her mind like a bee. Something she had seen in the Seeker Cassandra's report. 'There's another one,' she said suddenly.

'What?'

'The Eluvian... it's something the Seeker interviewing you wrote.' She struggled to recall the page of dense writing. 'There's another Eluvian in Kirkwall. They found it in the home of a friend of the Champion's.' One of my people, she thought. 'A blood mage,' she said instead.

Finn leaned forward in interest. 'Another broken one?'

'No. The mage had managed to repair it. They don't know what she was doing with it, but...'

'But what?'

Crazy half-formed ideas were swirling in Ariane's head. The Seekers had been after the Warden. The world was coming to pieces around them. She knew in her heart that the Warden would know what to do, and if he wasn't coming back...

'Oh... oh no,' said Finn slowly. The same idea had clearly just occurred to him. 'That's mad. That's completely bonkers.'

'Fine, fine.' She felt embarrassed for even having thought it. 'I was just thinking aloud anyways.'

'Good, because it would never work. It's not the same at all. Flemeth's daughter knew what she was doing, she had a complete copy of the text, she knew where to...' He paused, frowning slightly. He ran his fingers through his hair, his expression shifting to dreamy consideration. 'Huh. Maybe if... but then...'

'But what?' Her embarrassment slowly changed to excitement.

Finn opened his mouth to answer. Suddenly with a crash, Dog charged into the clearing, snapping stalks of corn as he ran to Ariane. She leapt to her feet as Dog whimpered softly.

'Oh, hi!' said Finn wonderingly. 'He still awfully big, isn't he?' He eyed the Mabari's teeth nervously. It responded with a wide, panting grin. Ariane realized with a sinking feeling that there was blood on Dog's muzzle.

Ariane grabbed Finn's arm and yanked him to his feet. 'They've noticed we're gone. We need to get out of here.' Silently she prayed that Dog hadn't injured any of the Seekers too badly. They could still hope to escape undetected if the alarm hadn't been fully raised. 'This way.' She started to run towards the bridge, shouldering her pack as she went. The straps twisted and dug into her shoulders.

As she ran, a sharp tug on her leg made her stumble and she spun, swiftly drawing the smaller of her two blades as she regained her balance. She looked around wildly. No Seekers. Instead, Dog tugged at the leather which covered her chain mail, whining. Finn slowed to a halt behind her, holding his staff awkwardly.

'What's he-'

A heavy weight slammed into the back of her helmet, driving her to her knees. Her ears rang. Instinct kicked in and she rolled to the side just as a club crashed into the ground where she had been, raising a cloud of dust. A fawn blur hurtled past her and a man cried out. Shaking her head to clear it, she struggled to her feet.

Her attacker lay prone on the ground, with Dog snarling at the man's bloody throat. Finn stood behind her in open-mouthed horror, staff dangling uselessly from one hand. Ariane narrowed her eyes. The man who had hit her was no Seeker. His armour was battered leather instead of plate, and he was armed with only a spiked wooden club. She glanced at his face. He was painfully young.

In the second it took her to observe the scene, two more men sped out of the corn. One of them gave a yell of rage as he saw the prone form of his friend. Common bandits, Ariane realized. Probably thought we were farmers. She drew her other sword and shifted into a defensive stance, cursing her stupidity. Next time, she would listen to the Mabari when it tried to tell her where the danger was. 'We don't want a figh-'

The larger of the remaining bandits lunged at her before she could finish her sentence, wielding his sword far more effectively than the first had used his club. She parried with one blade and lashed out with the other, only to have him dodge her. She felt a warm trickle from under her helmet where the club had hit her.

The other bandit seemed slightly less enraged, but no less dangerous. He levelled a crossbow at Finn, eyes gleaming from under his leather cap. 'Hand over your gold and weapons, and we'll make this-'

His chest heaved, and his voice cut off. Slowly, his face froze in an expression of horror – _literally _froze, Ariane realized, seeing the pale sheen of ice spread over the man's skin. Seizing the moment, she whipped her sword at the larger bandit while he was distracted. He parried again and stepped back, only to trip over an enraged Dog. He fell in a pile of limbs under the warhound's snapping jaws. The frozen man stared out from under a layer of frost in wide-eyed terror, mouth open in a silent scream. A heavy, cracked stone shape hurtled out of the dark and into his chest. The bandit shattered into a thousand pieces, pinkish ice crunching as it hit the ground.

Ariane breathed heavily, looking around for reinforcements. None came. Her head still pounding, she turned to check on Dog and Finn. Dog was still growling at the corpse under his paws. Finn was standing rigidly, face dead white.

'You could have left one for me,' she said. Her throat was raw.

'I think,' said Finn hollowly, 'I might throw up.'

She stepped over the bandit corpses, trying not to look too hard at how thin the men had been, or how old their equipment was. There had been no honour in this fight. The civil war had left so many desperate. Once more the Warden flashed into her mind, but she dismissed the thought as best she could.

'Come on,' she said, waving Finn forward from where he had frozen. 'I can see the bridge. Amaranthine's a long way yet.'

* * *

Sorry for the lengthy chapter - I was having a hard time figuring out where to split it up. As always, if you have time, please add a review! I really appreciate any and all suggestions.


	5. Chapter 5

Finn ran up the stairs to the senior enchanters' quarters, trying not to trip over his own feet, which seemed unnaturally large. He was late, he was certain, for something, but exactly what it was escaped him.

An exam, he decided as he ran. His vision was oddly blurry. An exam he hadn't studied for. He would be in trouble for this. An irrational amount of anxiety clenched his chest. If he could only get there in time, maybe he could request an extension.

The stairs, rather than leading into the stockroom like they were supposed to, spiralled up through the floor of a vaguely familiar garden. Sunlight beamed through the thick glass windows, lighting up the ruffled edges of the roses. His mother's roses, he realized vaguely. This was his parents' home. He examined his hands. Still an adult. Maybe he was visiting?

The floor swirled dizzyingly and Finn stumbled heavily to a stone bench. 'Stop that,' he said sharply to the roses, which had begun to pulse different colours. Eleni Zinovia was looking disapprovingly at him from behind a patch of chrysanthemums, her stone arms folded. Finn looked suspiciously at her, but she remained a statue. At least some people could be relied on not to swirl.

'Been a while.'

' I... what?' The man on the bench did not so much appear as Finn realized he had always been there. In fact, he was certain that the other man, dressed in dusty Senior Enchanters' robes and looking melancholically down at his gloved hands, had been here far longer than Finn had. Which was strange, Finn realized, since this was almost certainly his own dream.

This burst of logic relaxed Finn infinitely. This was a silly dream, brought on by anxiety about... the details of the previous night began to solidify and he groaned and covered his eyes. When he opened his eyes again, nothing had changed. The other man, now sickeningly familiar, was looking at him curiously.

Not a man, Finn reminded himself. Very dangerous to think that way. 'Why are you here?' he asked, trying and failing to hide the nervousness in his voice.

'Your defences are down,' the demon said. 'Relax,' it added, rolling its pale human eyes. 'I'm not planning on possessing you.' It brushed back its short brown hair and appraised Finn critically. 'Truthfully, I doubt I could.'

'Yes,' said Finn, trying to avoid eye contact. 'You could.' That had been amply clear the first time he had met this creature, during his Harrowing.

The demon – Mouse, it had called itself- shrugged, dropping its feigned respect. 'Talking is more interesting.' It stretched its arms above its head, yawning widely.

'What, things getting slow without Templars feeding you apprentices?' Finn was sweating now. He wanted to leave, but the floor seemed to disagree and had shattered into various geometric shapes. Mentally he tried to reconstruct the careful walls that the Circle trained mages to use against demons while they slept, but every time he thought of the Circle another wave of panic descended.

'Nothing of the sort,' said Mouse, with a sweet smile. 'So many of your kind, out and about, certain that they can take care of themselves at last... no matter the cost.' It spread its arms wide, the gilt on its sleeves sparkling in the humid air of the garden. 'This war is a banquet.'

'So go possess them,' Finn said, his brain working overtime trying to banish the confused haze of the scene. His best bet would be waking up, he decided. 'Leave me alone.'

'But I've remembered you,' said Mouse, its eyes widening. It reached out a hand and he jerked away reflexively. 'I always hoped you'd come back. I even came looking for you.'

That much was true, Finn realized. He had seen Mouse when the Circle almost broke during the Blight. Finn had been trapped inside the Circle Tower when the blood mages arrived. Mostly ignored, he had run around in a blind panic before encountering the massive sloth demon and collapsing on the floor. The rest of the encounter was a blur, but he could recall Mouse's voice, in the strange reddish stone halls of the Fade. The words were gone, but the hollow sense of dread came back to him.

Despite himself he felt a strange urge to hear the demon out. I need to wake up as fast as possible, he told himself. Dying in the dream was the fastest route out of the Fade, but he wasn't sure he'd be able to manage it. 'I'm honoured,' he told the demon, trying to keep his voice steady. 'Trust me.' Maybe he could try to break through the glass?

Mouse cocked its head. 'You know, I think you actually are.' It smiled. 'Otherwise why would I be here?'

Finn frowned. He hadn't expressed any desire to speak to a demon. He didn't think. 'Why are you here?' he asked, in a blind effort to get the subject away from himself. 'I haven't seen you in years. Why would you bother contacting me now?' Aside from the obvious, he added silently. That I'm an apostate now.

Mouse leaned forward. Its eyes looked tired and bruised, and its cheeks had hollows Finn didn't remember. 'I think maybe we can help each other. I need your help, Finn.' Its voice was plaintive, begging.

'I think I'll wake up now,' said Finn. 'If you don't mind.' The glass on the walls was slowly shifting, hardening into the iron of the door in the Chantry basement. Without the sunlight, the room darkened into an ominous gloom.

'Something is coming,' Mouse whispered, leaning in further as Finn tried to evade being close to it. 'Worse than any mortal war. The stone prophetess knew,' it said, indicating the Tevinter statue, which still crossed its arms and frowned with blank eyes from the corner. 'You've felt it in your world, too. It's worse here, in the Fade.' With a sickening crack, the ceiling was wrenched open, making Finn jump and yelp. Outside only swirling blackness was visible. Mouse looked up at it with eyes wide in abject fear. 'I don't think I can stay here. I'm... frightened.' The demon was a mouse again, hunching its back against the cold, wet air now blowing through the ruined room.

'Stop. Just... stop.' Irritation made Finn forget about waking up. Did anyone ever actually fall for ploys that obvious? 'Don't pretend to be all weak and sad. I know what you are.'

With a strange twisting inversion, Mouse was human again. It shrugged and rolled its eyes again. 'Please. As if you don't do the same, human,' it answered, mimicking Finn's aggravated tone.

'What are you-'

The demon laughed sarcastically. 'All those years?' The black iron of the walls reflected stacks of books on its polished surface, although there was nothing to reflect. 'Hiding behind a book, trying to convince the Templars you were harmless?' Mouse indicated the floor. A filthy corpse sprawled in bloody leathers, his mouth still frozen in a wordless scream. The demon's voice was silky. 'Why don't you ask that man you murdered tonight how harmless he thought you were?'

Finn tried to tear his eyes away from the body, but he seemed to be having trouble blinking. The bandit's frozen veins stood out black and swollen in his neck and arms. 'You need to work out your emotional targets, Mouse. I'm not _proud_ of... that.'

'Power is something to be proud of, Finn. It doesn't have to be evil.' Its eyes were wide and sincere.

'What you're offering is evil.'

Mouse snorted. 'You haven't even heard what I'm offering. How do you think she did it?' The demon grinned at Finn's reflexive start of curiosity. 'The little Dalish girl in Kirkwall who repaired the ancient mirror. One of my kind helped her, you know.'

No comment on what had happened to her, Finn noticed. He was itching to ask how the demon had helped, what exactly had been entailed in the repair of the mirror. The demon's grin widened, and Finn tried to pull himself together. 'I'm not going to Kirkwall. That was a stupid idea. I'm going to Amaranthine.' Assuming there's someone to go to, he prayed.

'To hide behind your mother?' it asked disparagingly, looking around dismissively at the rosebushes which still grew incongruously in the blackened greenhouse. 'You could do so much.' It considered their surroundings briefly. 'I think she was impressed, you know.'

Oh, _shit._ 'Who, my mother?' Finn asked, voice cracking. The demon looked at him dubiously, obviously not remotely fooled. The statue of the prophetess suddenly bore a striking resemblance to Ariane.

Mouse shrugged innocently. 'She doesn't seem to think power is something to be hidden.' Finn clenched his fists, his clean nails cutting into his palms. If you try to tell me what she thinks, Finn thought, I swear to Andraste I will electrocute you, pride demon or not. Wasn't it desire demons who usually tried things like this?

Mouse grinned, as though enjoying Finn's violent thoughts. Or maybe he just noticed his clenched jaw and fingers. 'Imagine how she would feel if you actually did it. If you really brought the Warden back through the mirror.'

Finn stood up rigidly, causing the room to buckle and sway. 'I'm waking up. I'm not talking to you anymore.' He could feel a dull pressure headache setting into his real body, calling him back from the Fade.

'Whenever you like,' said Mouse, stretching as though the whole thing was inconsequential. The black sky yawned as the dream began to dissolve. 'I'll be waiting.'

'You're not even a mouse,' said Finn, trying desperately to think of a comeback before the dream slipped away for good. 'You're a rat. The noses are different.'

Nice, that wasn't pitiful at all.

'You awake?' A voice asked. A real voice. Finn could feel it pulling him out of his dream, back into the real world.

He didn't want to go, though. He still hadn't come up with a decent comeback. 'And rats are much larger, anyways, and they smell...'

'What?'

Finn became conscious of a stabbing pain in his back, in addition to the pain from his clenched jaw. He opened his eyes. His whole body felt trampled. Afternoon sunlight streamed into his eyes through the autumn leaves overhead, and Ariane crouched beside him, head tilted curiously.

'Nothing!' He rolled off the scratchy wool blanket that had inadequately substituted for a mattress and sat up. 'What time is it?' He rubbed his eyes blearily.

'Late afternoon. I thought we'd avoid notice better by travelling in the dark.' Ariane's face was impassive, but then, it always was. Were all Dalish this difficult to read, or just her? Then again, maybe it was women in general. Her straight hair was mussed from sleeping on the bare ground, but she looked alert.

A quick glance around revealed that their makeshift camp had already been dismantled. The ashes from the fire had been scattered, and all of Ariane's travelling things had vanished into a monumentally heavy-looking pack. Ariane had insisted on giving him the only blanket, and she began to fold it to be packed. 'You should have woken me,' he said, trying to suppress a yawn. 'I could have helped.'

'Thought you could use the sleep,' she said, trying to bundle the blanket into the pack.

'No really,' muttered Finn, remembering the details of his dream. 'You should have woken me. Oh, no...' he said, seeing her slight frown of worry. The last thing he wanted was for her to think he was angry with her. Having to explain his encounter with the demon was a close second. 'I just have a dirty great root sticking in my back. Not that the blanket didn't help, I'm just not used to this. Sleeping on the ground I mean. But I'm sure it's better than sleeping in a Chantry prison, or being interrogated-' Babbling was not a solution either, but his mouth seemed to have a mind of its own – a far less functional one than the rest of him. 'I'm not... sorry,' he finished lamely.

To his surprise, Ariane smiled. 'Relax,' she said, not even sounding exasperated.

Finn flinched anyways. That was what Mouse had said too. Ariane's frown returned. 'As soon as I can move my neck again. Where are we?' he asked, trying to change the subject. All forest looked the same to him.

'North of Lothering,' she explained. They had walked what felt like miles the previous night after the fight with the bandits. When the darkness had turned grey with morning, Ariane had finally called a halt and set up a hasty camp in a copse of trees. 'Somewhere in the Bannorn, I'd guess.'

Finn called to mind a visual of the layout of Fereldan. The Bannorn was extremely large. 'Um. How accurate are your guesses, usually?'

'We're not lost,' she objected, sounding slightly put out.

'I didn't mean... I know you can navigate; it's just that everything is very big and looks sort of different when it's not a drawing on a map. And _you_,' he said as Dog bounded out of the bushed and licked Finn's face furiously,_ '_smell like dog breath.' The warhound's tail wagged happily at the attention.

Ariane said nothing. Her slanted green eyes were fixed on the horizon, just visible through the trees. Her usually impassive face was troubled, and one of her hands strayed to her mouth so she could chew on a fingernail.

After a few moments, Finn rose stiffly and stepped beside her. The blanket was lying forgotten on the dirt. He began to fold it, matching up the corners with obsessive precision. 'Um...' he finally ventured. 'Is something wrong?'

'Listen,' she said, still gazing at something far away and unseen. 'There's something I... I need a favour.' The words seemed to be difficult for her to pronounce.

'Anything,' Finn said fervently. He realized how eager he sounded and blushed. 'I mean, as long as it doesn't involve Vartarrel. I'd rather not meet another of those.'

'It's the book,' Ariane said in a rush. Seeing him open his mouth, she raised a hand defensively. 'I know it's in the Tower, and I should just forget about it, but...' She shrugged her narrow shoulders, looking dejected. 'My clan has lost a lot. Over the past years. We lost our Keeper to the Templars, and so many were killed by darkspawn. One of them was...' Ariane closed her eyes to draw breath slowly.

When she continued her voice was steadier. 'He was important to me.' She looked at Finn, eyes pleading. 'I feel as though if we had something the clan could see, something that proved our history was worth living for, everything would be so much clearer. I'm afraid that we're losing hope.' The speech seemed to be a relief for her. Her back straightened and her tense hands seemed to relax. Dog pressed his huge hairy head into her hand, and she scratched him affectionately behind the ears.

Approximately a thousand questions jumped into Finn's head, ranging from sympathetic to completely inappropriate. Foremost were what had happened to the Keeper, and who this dead man that Finn was suddenly intensely jealous of had been. These both fell resoundingly into the second category, so instead he asked, 'You mean you're going to steal it?'

Ariane cheeks flushed under the thin lines of blood writing. 'I shouldn't have told you,' she said, sounding genuinely apologetic. 'That wasn't fair. I swore I'd get you to safety, not into more danger.' She looked wistful. 'I just thought... maybe you could give me a layout of the Tower? So I'd know where to find it.'

Finn felt immediately guilty. He had known the book had been important to the Dalish, but if he had known how important it was to Ariane personally – as it clearly was, no matter how much she claimed it was for her people – he would have tried harder to get in touch with her. It was too late now. The book was out of reach. The Circle Tower was west of their location, and Amaranthine was northeast.

'The Tower is occupied by rebels,' he explained. He picked up a burned stick from the fire, trying to ignore the dirty smudges it left on his hands, and drew a rudimentary map in the dirt. Dog immediately decided he wanted to help, so the Tower wound up with a few more paw prints than it had in reality. 'And it wasn't ever easy to break into. Surrounded by water, only one exit or entrance...' He shrugged. 'It's basically impassable.' A single agent would have no hope of breaking in, and unlikely that a Dalish clan would summon the power to break in by force.

Ariane's face fell. She noticed him looking and offered an apologetic smile.

Finn looked down at the rough map again, searching his mind for some hole in the defences. Only one occurred. It was brutally obvious, but there was no way he could ever pull it off. There was absolutely no point in mentioning it.

'Unless...' His mouth appeared to have turned traitor. Ariane looked at him curiously and he swallowed hard. 'Well. It would be easier for, you know. Someone like me.'

'What do you mean?'

No getting out of it now. 'A mage who'd been... who'd escaped the Chantry. Like the other rebels. They might let me in, and if I said you were with me- not _with _me I mean,' he added quickly feeling his face get hot, 'but that you were travelling with me...'

'You'd do that?' Her voice was full of honest surprise and gratitude.

Finn felt his blush deepen. 'Well. I don't have much else to do, do I?' he rationalized, avoiding eye contact. 'I sort of owe you for being such a coward. Besides it would be nice to go back. And I might even know some of the mages there.'

Vaguely he knew he was babbling again. Truthfully, the idea of returning to the Tower made him nauseous. Part of it was the danger if the rebels wouldn't accept him, but a bigger part was the idea of seeing it changed. Finn wasn't sure that knowing any of the rebel mages would help him, either. His reputation at the Tower had been less 'supporter of mage rights' than 'escapist doormat'.

At least finding the book would be easy – he doubted anyone else would be remotely interested. It was probably still in the library where he had left it. He frowned as he remembered something. When the Templars were forced to vacate the tower and turn it over to the free mages, their last act of defiance had been to stash anything dangerous in the basement, behind secure doors.

The notes he'd been copying hadn't been _dangerous_, per se, but they had been chiefly in a lost Elven dialect, and clearly magical. The Templars' tactic was usually to restrict first and ask questions later. He had been in the basement enough times to know that it required cooperation from a Chantry member and a mage to open, and the Templars may have increased security before the apprentice phylacteries were finally moved to a safer location.

'Oh shit!'

Ariane jumped. 'What? Did you see something?' she demanded, hand straying to the hilt of her sword as her eyes scanned the trees. Dog whined questioningly.

'No I just...' Finn rubbed his forehead in frustration. He was used to feeling a lot of things, but stupid wasn't usually one of them. Lately, though, it seemed like his natural state. 'My phylactery. I just remembered, it's in Denerim.'

Mage phylacteries were always moved when a mage completed their apprenticeship. Theoretically the reason was because a qualified mage might move around during research or military service, but the more practical reason was to prevent anyone powerful from getting any ideas.

Finn recalled hearing of several attacks on phylactery storage sites in the cities during his time in Lothering, but the Chantry members had usually hushed their voices when they noticed him listening. There was no way of knowing how successful the strikes had actually been. 'There's a chance it was one of the ones destroyed, but...'

Ariane stared at him in disbelief. Her hand seemed frozen on her hilt. 'Are you saying that armed Templars could be on our heads any moment? And you just remembered now?'

His face fell and she winced. 'Oh gods, sorry. I didn't mean to sound harsh.' She smiled half-heartedly. 'I just usually try to wait at least two hours after waking up before fighting any major political factions.'

'No, 's true,' Finn mumbled, feeling dumber by the second. 'I should have remembered.' Or, at the very least, he should have known better than to imagine running might work.

'I don't think the Templars bother much with phylacteries now,' he added, trying to reassure himself. 'There are just too many apostates. But if the Seekers decided it was important...' Cassandra's completely humourless face appeared unbidden in his mind, draining the last of his optimism.

Dog heaved a huge sigh and sat down by Finn's feet, looking up with liquid brown eyes.

'What can we do?' Ariane asked practically.

'Nothing,' said Finn gloomily. Well, he could get caught, but that was probably not what she was after. He obliged the Mabari with a scratch behind the ears. 'Nothing useful, anyways. We should split up, I suppose.' If he returned to Lothering, Ariane would never have to know. She could go home to her clan. That was, assuming he could find Lothering. The forest looked even more impenetrable when he thought of being there alone.

'Not happening,' said Ariane flatly. 'What are the alternatives?'

'What?'

Her shoulders were still tense, but she smiled. 'I said I'd get you somewhere safe, remember?' He looked at her dubiously. She rolled her eyes. 'Come on, you're brilliant. If anyone can solve it it's you.'

Finn was about to tell her that Templars had been using phylacteries effectively for hundreds of years and there was no way he could invent a way of fooling them in a few hours, but the words stuck in his mouth. Possibly they were blocked by the unexpected praise.

As he considered a new way of rephrasing that she should leave on her own, a memory came to him unbidden. A passage from a text in the library, a study on blood magic, from before the First Enchanter had removed the entire section to protect the apprentices.

The yellowed book hadn't been particularly popular anyways. Most of it was an extremely dry history of the laws forbidding blood magic in Ferelden, punctuated with some extremely grisly descriptions of now-outlawed Chantry torture methods.

In one account, however, a templar had chased down a maleficar using her phylactery. The woman in question had apparently been extremely liberal with her vein-slashing (as described in graphic detail). She had left so much of her dried and liquid blood in her wake that the phylactery had responded to the trail, and it had taken the templar several weeks to realize that she was already dead.

'I... might have an idea,' he said slowly. He definitely did have an idea now. 'I came up with it a while ago, but it's untested. I guess I never thought I'd need it.' It's also borderline blood magic, he added silently. But it might work.

Ariane's face brightened. 'Can I help?'

'Yes.' Materials were an issue. But then, there was always room for improvisation. 'I'm going to need to cut up the blanket.'

* * *

Another long chapter, sorry... T_T On the other hand, I finally got the end of this story finished! It needs some pretty dramatic editing, but it's the first time I've tried anything other than a one-shot, so I'm happy anyways.

Thank you very much to borismortys and D-Ro2593 for the reviews! D-Ro's review made me realize that some of my pacing was pretty strange, so a lot of the aforementioned editing will be going into that department :)

Again, thank-you so much for reading, and if you have any time, please leave me some concrit!


	6. Chapter 6

'Alright,' said Ariane, picking up one of two finished rag dolls and turning it over in her hands. It was maybe a foot tall, with little stick legs poking out at odd angles and a lumpy woolen head. Symbols and writing had been scratched onto the rough cloth in charcoal. Inexplicably, Finn had also included a happy face. 'So they're kind of cute. What do they do?'

'Distract the Templars, I hope.' Finn was scribbling frantically on the remains of their only blanket as they walked. Ariane had insisted that they keep moving as he worked, on the off chance they had already been tracked. Finn had walked into two trees and a thorn bush so far, but it hadn't seemed to break his concentration.

Twisting thread around one long finger, he bound a third set of twigs into a roughly humanoid shape. 'Didn't you know?' he added, tearing his eyes away from his work to smile at her. 'All Templars love dolls. It is their deepest secret and the source of their power.'

She grinned. Somehow, having a life-threatening challenge to work on actually seemed to have relaxed the mage. Personally, she preferred problems she could stick a sword into, but the mental challenge was clearly doing Finn some good.

The sun sank behind the trees, turning the sky pink and orange, reminding her that her kind of problem could appear any moment. Being off the path was scarcely safe at the best of times.

She examined the doll again. Its head flopped listlessly from side to side as she walked. Dog had been initially interested in the sticks, but he eyed the completed dolls with an air of great suspicion. 'I think I had something like this when I was eight,' she mused. 'Her name was Pansy. Then a halla chewed her legs off.' She kept the doll out of the warhound's reach to ensure the experience would not be repeated.

'And... done,' said Finn, holding up the third completed doll. Its face was slightly crooked, giving it a mildly bemused expression. He placed it on the leaf-covered ground, balancing it on its stick-legs, and leaned down and whispered something conspiratorially to it. Ariane started as the runes on its cloth head glowed briefly.

The doll stood still for a moment, and then slowly, curiously, tilted its head upwards towards them. One stuck leg swung in front of the other, and it lurched forwards a few inches. Dog leapt back and growled. Finn beamed proudly.

'Eurgh,' said Ariane. Having found its stride, the doll began to explore its patch of ground, moving slowly with an odd straight-legged gait. 'They're less cute when they totter around like that. Like little stick-zombies.' She spoke from experience – of all the bizarre things she had seen, undead had been a particular nightmare.

Finn patted the little monster on the head affectionately and straightened up. 'Last step.' He closed his eyes for a moment, then yanked back his sleeve and thrust his wrist under her nose. 'I'm going to need you to cut my arm.'

Ariane stared blankly at his forearm. 'What?'

'Fast please,' he said, screwing up his face in anticipation. 'I can't do it; I'll just get nervous and muck it up.' His voice cracked, suggesting it was a bit late to be worrying about nerves.

'Uh,' said Ariane slowly. Was this some kind of delayed-reaction suicidal fit? 'How much cutting, exactly?'

Finn gestured tersely to the dolls with his other hand. 'Enough to get blood on all of them.' He swallowed hard. 'Urk. That's going to be a lot.'

'Pansy definitely didn't have any blood on her.' Ariane deposited the other two dolls on the ground, where they started to toddle about in circles. Dog yelped in alarm and hid his hulking body behind a rock.

She fingered the knife in her belt. 'Wait, is this dangerous?' Blood didn't always mean blood magic, but stealth was their goal and a dirty great demon falling from the sky was not going to help their case when the Templars caught up with them.

'That depends on how good you are with that knife,' Finn joked, failing to look confident.

When she didn't answer, he added, 'It's not blood magic. At least I don't think – FUCK! '

Ariane quickly wiped her now-bloody knife on her armour and caught one of the dolls. 'I don't think I've heard you curse before,' she mused, mopping the gash in Finn's arm with the struggling thing's head.

'You could have warned me!' he objected.

'You would have tensed up and it would have hurt more.' She dropped the third doll on the dirt, marked with its own trickle of blood. 'That's the last of them. What now?'

'I'm dizzy,' moaned Finn, looking green. He examined his arm. 'This is really deep!'

It wasn't deep, but Ariane wrapped the remains of the blanket around the cut to stop him from poking at it. 'Can't you heal it?'

'Oh. Yeah.' The mage frowned, then gestured over his forearm. A soft light shone around the makeshift bandage, briefly intensifying. When Ariane removed the blanket, the skin was still red and raw, but the open wound was gone.

She was about to ask if he could do anything for the sore bump on the back of her head, but Finn seemed to forget about the injury as soon as the blood was gone. Kneeling again, he carefully positioned each doll to face in a different direction. 'Alright. South, north, and west.'

She pointed at the smallest doll, which had mismatched legs and was weaving slightly starboard. 'That's east.'

'Whatever.' He released the dolls, then stood up to observe. Without a restriction, they each began to totter off on their new path, covering a remarkable amount of ground for their size. Dog peeked through his paws to watch them go. Ariane could swear that one of the creepy things looked over its shoulder and smiled at her. She shuddered.

'Phylacteries work like compasses,' Finn explained, watching them go. 'They just give a direction, not a location. So with any luck, this lot will confuse it enough to give us some time.'

'Won't they... wear out or something?'

He shrugged. 'Eventually. I put a lot into them,' he added, suddenly appearing to notice his imperfectly healed arm. She raised her eyebrows at it and he quickly hid it behind his back. 'They should work for a week at least.'

'Assuming nothing steps on them.' The last of the dolls bounced out of view behind a rock. Hopefully they wouldn't be as appealing to hallas as old Pansy had been.

'So,' said Ariane after a pause. 'Now what?'

She had been dreading the question, she realized. Night had fallen in earnest now. No matter the objections, she wasn't letting Finn leave on his own. Dog was smart, but she wasn't sure if his sense of direction was strong enough to guide someone to a city and back again without her. She would have to go northeast to Amaranthine first, then circle around and make her way back to the Circle Tower if she was going to find the book. Or whatever was left of it.

'I thought we were going to the Circle Tower,' Finn said, sounding surprised.

'You're sure?' Her heart leapt. She could find the tower on her own, but one set of papers looked much like any other to her, and she was hopeless at navigating large buildings. 'It isn't your job,' she added, although the protest sounded a bit hollow.

'Consider it compensation for rescuing me.' He started off, stumbling over a tree root in the dark. 'They'll probably trust you more with me there.'

Ariane smiled and shouldered the heavy pack, turning in the opposite direction. Dog looked back and forth between them with a baffled expression. 'Wrong way,' she explained to Finn.

'I knew that.'

* * *

The sky was turning grey in the east when they came across the crater. From a distance it had looked like a grey thumbprint on the rocky land. Ariane had been more interested in the Circle Tower looming behind it, only hours away.

As they approached though, the scrubby greenery gave way to charred earth, and nervousness settled into the pit of Ariane's stomach. Soot streaked the cracked boulders and ash choked the air, unsettling in puffs wherever her boots fell. Dog sniffed at the thick grey coating and sneezed violently.

Tentatively, she approached the centre of the blast. A rock caught her foot and she stumbled, instinctively putting out a hand to catch herself. As she regained her balance, she realized that what she had taken for a rock was a charred skull. Blackened bones littered the area, with pieces of half-molten metal gleaming from their skeletal hands. Ariane shuddered.

'Maker,' whispered Finn, hanging back. 'What happened here?'

'I thought you'd know,' she answered, surprised. Something this large and unnatural could only be the work of mages, and surely powerful ones. The floating dust stung her eyes, making them water.

Dog barked as he discovered a fresh pile of bones. 'Some sort of fire spells, maybe?' Ariane suggested.

'Not like any I've ever seen,' said Finn, frowning. 'Eurgh, don't touch it!' he yelped as she bent down to examine the skull she had tripped on. 'That is completely unhygienic. '

The skull grinned at her with blackened teeth. A twisted piece of gold was melted onto the side – the remains of an earring.

'We should get out of here,' Ariane said quietly. The sheer power of what had been done here was unsettling.

'You're going to wash your hands, right?' he asked as she stood up and carefully stepped over the bones.

She indicated the tower. The dawn had tinged the water around it pink and orange. They would need to cross that lake if they were to reach their destination. 'Which side are the docks on?'

'Um... South?' Finn suggested nervously, sounding worryingly uncertain. 'I think. I haven't been there that many times. Oh! There was a bar by the docks. I remember apprentices talking about it. It was sort of a sport, to see if you could sneak out and get to the bar before the templars caught you. Supposedly the owner would serve drinks even if you were in robes, and someone once said they met a sailor woman who-'

A flicker of light appeared at the corner of her vision. A resounding crack split the air, making her ears hurt. Adrenaline took over as she realized they were under attack.

'Get down!' She grabbed Finn's arm and yanked down, depositing him face-first onto the sooty ground. She barely had time to duck herself before a blue bolt of electricity flew over her head, close enough that she smelled singed hair. Dog snarled and dropped low to the ground, hackles raised.

'Ah! What?' yelled Finn, spitting out a mouthful of ash. 'Those are mages! Why are they attacking us?'

Another bolt hit a rock behind her, crackling over its surface. Not for the first time, Ariane wished she was a little better with a bow. Banic had been an archer and joked about her wretched aim. She was confident that she could take anything and anyone, particularly with the Mabari's help, but not if they refused to let her get close enough.

'I have no idea,' she answered the mage, grimacing. She gesture to the bones around their feet. 'But judging by what happened to this lot, I'd say-'

She was cut off by a resounding boom, followed by an explosion of intense heat. Dog yipped in pain as fire scorched his fur. Flames licked at her boots and she sidestepped them, drawing her swords.

As fast as she could, she rolled to the cover of another boulder and peeked up over it. Her first view of their attackers revealed that there were three of them, standing in a cluster perhaps a hundred meters off. One of them, a slim female, crouched forwards. A fresh glowing ball of fire began to materialize in the mage's hands.

Fireballs, she thought to herself. Probably what did in the poor souls around them.

They might be outnumbered, but she wasn't just going to stand here and be blown up. She prepared herself to charge.


	7. Chapter 7

The flames in the enemy mage's hand grew white-hot, and with a yell of exertion she flung the globe at the rock Ariane was using for cover.

Ariane ducked, but before the fireball could make impact a pale-blue wall flickered into being in front of her. The projectile hit the transparent barrier and exploded harmlessly on the other side, although the blast of heat made her flinch.

Finn crawled to her side, face pale with the exertion of maintaining the shield. His hands sparked with electricity – some kind of retaliation, Ariane hoped.

This was the best chance for a charge she was going to get. Dog, clearly having the same thought (she would never get over how intelligent the Mabari was), crouched at her feet, the muscles in his huge shoulders bunched.

She opened her mouth to tell Finn her intentions, but before she could speak the bombardment from the enemy mages abruptly stopped. Ariane risked another glance over the rocks.

The three mages appeared to be having some kind of an argument. Their heads were bent together, and one of them was gesticulating wildly.

Finally, they seemed to come to some kind of agreement. One figure, clearly the leader, began to approach. A battered-looking wooden staff smoked slightly in her hand.

'Lay down your weapons!' the woman barked in a hoarse voice.

'I can't!' Finn shrieked back, holding up his crackling hands. Ariane slowly lowered her swords, keeping her grip firm on the hilts.

The mage leader was close enough for Ariane to see in detail now. She was older than Ariane had expected; middle-aged and stocky, with unruly greying hair pulled back into a severe bun and a well-worn frown stuck on her face. She didn't wear mage robes, and her rough-spun workers clothes looked serviceable, but worn.

'Is that-' the woman said, anger shifting to surprise as she spotted Finn, still holding his hands over his head. 'Finn? Finn Aldebrant?'

'Um. I think so?' squeaked Finn, looking helplessly at Ariane for advice.

Ariane glared at the approaching mage woman, who was now flanked by a twitchy elf girl and a square-jawed, scowling human. Dog snarled and she put one hand out to stop him from charging, although her instincts told her to do the same. If the mages were this hostile, she would have to just give up on the book.

'Yes!' Finn finally decided. 'Yes! Please don't kill us!'

The older woman didn't smile exactly, but the lines around her mouth lessened somewhat. 'Maker.' She frowned at the other two, who were still holding weapons at the ready. The young man looked particularly murderous. 'Relax, you,' she said sharply to him. Grudgingly, he lowered his staff, keeping his eyes fixed on Ariane's blades.

The leader, arms crossed, assessed the pair of them. Ariane felt distinctly uncomfortable as the woman's sharp dark eyes took in her weapons and pack, as well as her Dalish armour. Finally the mage woman put her hands on her hips and addressed Finn, who seemed to have suddenly found his feet fascinating. 'Didn't expect to see you again.'

Finn tore his eyes from the ground, and recognition flickered in his eyes. His face broke into a wide grin or relief. With his face streaked with soot, the effect was slightly deranged. 'Oh, it's you! I mean, Senior Enchanter. I mean...' He turned to Ariane and indicated the humourless mage. 'This is Senior Enchanter Nikea, Ariane. '

'Just Nikea now,' said the woman, studying Ariane unblinkingly. Her voice betrayed a slight accent. 'You're one of the Dalish,' Nikea observed.

'So it would seem.' Ariane would never understand the human need to state the obvious. Dog shifted uncomfortably, obviously wishing he could just attack. She could identify.

Nikea flicked her eyes to the scorched earth. 'What the hell did you do?' she asked Finn, scowling.

'I was thinking of asking you the same.' Ariane answered coldly. Finn shrugged helplessly at the older mage.

Nikea looked surprised. 'We didn't do this. These are our people.' The elf girl was wide-eyed, the human mage looked enraged.

'What?' asked Finn, looking baffled. He studied the rock Ariane had ducked behind when the fireball exploded. That rock was scarcely damaged, Ariane realized, whereas the boulders in the crater were lumpy as misshapen. Whatever had made the crater had been capable of melting stone. 'Was there some kind of infighting, or an accident, or-'

'Blackpowder,' Nikea answered shortly.

Ariane's heart stopped. She had heard of the intensely dangerous chemical, but few had ever seen it in action – and most of those who had were dead.

'There are Qunari here?' Finn yelped.

Nikea's voice was grim. 'Outcasts, trading with the Templar Order.' She examined the charred bones again. 'Rytel said it was happening,' she mused, 'but I didn't want to believe him. '

'But – the Chantry wouldn't use blackpowder!' Finn objected. 'Would they?' he asked Ariane in a smaller voice, sounding less certain.

'The evidence would seem to disagree.' Privately, Ariane would put nothing past the Templars – but these mages hardly seemed like a viable alternative. The sooner this was over the better.

'Not many Templars care what the Chantry thinks anymore,' Nikea explained. 'When the Nevarran Accord was declared null, most of them preferred to stick with their order over their church.' The name was unfamiliar to Ariane, but at its mention Finn looked horrified.

'Looks like there's nothing we can do here,' the woman told her followers. She turned back to them. 'Why are you here, Finn?' she asked, voice softening slightly.

'I wanted to help?' Finn offered in a squeaky voice. 'With, you know. Being a rebel. And stuff. Blowing up Templars? Not with blackpowder, though,' he added hastily with an alarmed look at the crater.

'Don't you have somewhere else to go?' Nikea asked.

After a pause, Finn shook his head slowly. She sighed. 'What about you?' she said, eyes flicking to Ariane, who had started to feel invisible. She took in Ariane's longswords and the angry Mabari in front of her. 'You're no mage.'

Well spotted, Ariane though acidly. Instead she tried to come up with a reason why she would be so interested in mage rights. The Dalish were hardly known for their political involvement.

'Templars took our Keeper,' she said finally. The woman's eyebrows raised. 'I wanted to...' Ariane's voice trailed off. Between the two of them, why couldn't one of them have been good with words? What she wouldn't give for some of the Warden's easy charisma. Everyone had listened to him.

Despite Ariane's discomfort, her awkward explanation seemed to satisfy Nikea somewhat. The older woman gave her a last questioning look, then turned in the direction of the looming Tower.

'Come on, then. You'll have to speak to Rytel. He chooses who's welcome in the Tower these days.'

* * *

'So what was the Nevarran Record?' Ariane asked Finn quietly as their small dingy approached the doors of the Circle Tower. The Tower – Finn had informed her that its proper name was Kinloch Hold, but she couldn't think of it as anything but the Tower – was even taller than it had looked from a distance. The idea of being that high in the air made her dizzy, and Nikea's two assistants were still glaring at her sullenly. Talking would mask her nervousness, she hoped.

It didn't help that she had been forced to leave Dog outside for the second time in as many days. The mages had refused to let the Mabari on the boat, claiming that he would only be a danger in the castle. Dog had whined in confusion when she told him to wait by the docks. He had been in the mage tower at least once before – he probably thought there were still people he knew in there. She hoped he would forgive her eventually.

'Nevarran Accord,' Finn corrected. If anything, he seemed even more agitated than she felt. He picked at a loose thread in his sleeve, unravelling it into a long trail. 'It's the document that binds the Templars and the Seekers to the Chantry. It's...'

He swallowed hard. 'I knew they had broken off, but I had no idea it was so official. That means the Order leaders must have agreed they needed to separate from the Divine.' His tone made it clear how massive this was.

Ariane leaned forwards, confused. 'But there were Templars where you – at the Chantry in Lothering,' she corrected hastily, noticing Nikea watching them. 'I saw them. '

'There are some holdouts, of course,' Nikea interjected in her raspy voice. Their tiny boat pulled up to the docks, and the two assistants jumped out and roped it to the narrow pier. Ariane stood to help, but a glare from the man put her back in her seat. 'Just like the mages who still hide in the Chantry,' Nikea continued. Was Ariane being paranoid, or did the other mage give Finn a significant look? 'Hoping everything will blow away overnight, and go back to the way it was.' She snorted with derision.

Ariane climbed ably out of the boat; Finn followed her more awkwardly. The five of them started up the steps to the imposing iron doors of the Tower.

'So – the Seekers are no longer with the Chantry either?' she asked. That was a disturbing thought – when she was being interviewed, she had assumed it was under the scrutiny of the Chantry. If the Seekers were free to do as they wanted, she was lucky she had made it out at all.

She shuddered to think of what a trial run exclusively under Seeker authority might be like. Her resolve to ensure Finn ended up safe strengthened.

'They 'enforce the will of the Maker as they see fit'.' The male mage – Ariane had yet to learn his name- spoke for the first time. His rough country accent was increased by the scorn in his voice. 'Usually they see fit to murder everything in sight.'

As they approached the heavy stone walls, Nikea whispered a password Ariane couldn't make out. The massive doors groaned on their hinges, and slowly swung open of their own accord.

Ariane jumped when they moved, but Finn didn't even appear to notice. Through the gaping arch, she could see the vaguely familiar sight of the entrance hall.

'Oh, it's...' Finn touched the dingy wall as they entered, staring around the cavernous room.

The floor was scored with gouges from blade strikes, and the once-smooth stone walls were pitted with holes. Ariane thought of the kind of struggle that must have gone on to cause that kind of damage and shivered again. The Templars expulsion from the Tower must not have been as bloodless as Finn seemed to believe.

'Different,' said Nikea, passing through the bashed-in door into the corridor beyond. 'I know.'

More people scampered along the dim hallway; all dressed much the same as Nikea was. Ariane felt incongruous in her armour, but Finn in his mage robes seemed to be earning more attention from the rebel mages. Not that he noticed – she noted with some concern that his eyes were huge in his dirty face, and his mouth was still hanging open. He stopped to run a hand along a wall where a tapestry had clearly once hung – the wall behind was still paler. His lips moved wordlessly. Ariane gently took his arm and led him along so he wouldn't fall behind.

'You'll need to speak to Rytel, then,' said Nikea. She seemed unaware of either of their distress – or possibly she was attempting to be polite by not pointing it out. Ariane didn't think she would ever be able to tell this woman's moods.

Nikea's eyes ran over their filthy clothes and the trail of dirt they were leaving in their wake. 'Although you may wish to bathe, first,' she added. Was Ariane seeing things, or was there a hint of a smile on her face?

'Yes please,' said Finn fervently. He attempted to wipe his face on his sleeve, somehow making both items even dirtier in the process.

Ariane longed to clean up as well, but she was still tense. 'Who is Rytel?' she murmured to Finn, hoping Nikea wouldn't hear.

'No idea,' he answered quietly. 'Must be new.' He indicated Nikea. 'I didn't expect to see her here either; she's from the Anderfels. She visited for a year once. I'm surprised she remembered me.'

Ariane was stunned. 'That's miles and miles.' Impossibly far away, in her mind. Why would Nikea come here?

They entered the vast circular central room. A small group of mages stopped chattering to stare at them in disbelief. Ariane stared back, unblinking, but a sharp glance from Nikea got the mages moving again. Nikea gestured at the stairs, and turned to the young elven mage. 'Enalla, find somewhere for these two to sleep for now.' She regarded Finn, considering. 'If I recall correctly, your room has been reoccupied, but we'll fit you in somewhere.'

With a curt nod, she swept off across the room. Her male assistant, after a brief pause, followed.

Ariane followed Enalla, who refused to speak to either of them, up the winding stone stairs. Exhaustion hit her in a wave, and she wondered if there would be time to sleep before they were interrogated – as she was certain would happen – by the leader of the rebel mages. She felt dead on her feet.

Trudging after Enalla, she wondered how she would ever find her clan's book in this enormous place. When she had been here with the Warden the size had seemed almost comical – just another strange obsession of the shemlan. Now it was just one more thing that was too big for her to understand.

Her clan had better bloody appreciate this.

* * *

Thank-you again for reading! This chaper ran a bit long, so I split it in two (and cut out a big section I realized was totally unnecessary).

Again, if you have time, please leave a review! I am editing and rewriting a lot of this story as I post it, and I really appreciate any advice.


	8. Chapter 8

Finn had known coming into this that the Tower wouldn't be what he remembered, and had attempted to prepare his mind for the changes. The smashed banisters on the staircases had been a blow, as had the devastated carving and (he realized with some surprise) the empty posts where the Templars usually lounged, waiting for boring guard duty to be over.

Even the lighting seemed wrong – or maybe it was just that everything was covered in a layer of dirt. He had always vaguely known that the Tower was maintained by servants, mostly elves, but with some guilt it occurred to him that he had never really known how much work they did. He hadn't even known any of their names.

The library, though. He had been prepared for a general state of dilapidation – it had always been a little haphazard anyways. He hadn't realized it would be empty.

It wasn't completely empty, he reassured himself, trying not to panic.

It didn't make him feel better. So many of the tall wooden shelves had been stripped bare. Those books which remained hung from their covers, or were piled in disorganized stacks on the hard floor. The backs of the shelves had never been visible before. They looked faintly obscene, pale from having been covered for so long. Most of the workstations were buried under heaps of paper and torn pages.

'Bloody templars, eh?'

Finn was suddenly aware of himself, standing where apprentices used to practice, face frozen in mute, open-jawed horror.

He clamped his mouth shut and turned to the young elf woman who had directed him to his designated room in what had used to be the templar quarters. She was small and twitchy, with rather pretty fair hair and slightly protruding front teeth. She shook her head disapprovingly at the shelves.

'They're not all gone, don't worry. A lot of them have been claimed by proper mages. But the Templars locked up anything really useful.' Her high voice was bitter. 'The ones they didn't burn, anyways.'

'Burn?' Finn squeaked. It was a relief to know some of the books had survived, but how was anyone supposed to find them if each mage was hoarding them for themselves?

The girl – Enalla, he remembered – looked at him sympathetically. 'You're from here, aren't you? Sorry about this.' She gestured at the gutted room. 'It must be upsetting.'

That was an understatement. Finn felt as though someone had died.

He managed a weak smile, hoping she would see his discomfort and go away. There was still a small chance Ariane's book was here somewhere.

She didn't budge. 'You found everything alright? There were some clothes in that room if you want to change.' She looked significantly at his mage robes.

Finn shrugged noncommittally. He had found more of the rough clothes the rebel mages wore in a chest in his room, but a quick experiment had confirmed in his mind that pants were the work of particularly insidious demons. A combination of soap and some carefully applied magic had cleaned the dust from his own clothes.

Now, though, he wished he had suffered the pants. He stuck out.

Enalla smiled brightly at him. 'Is there something you're looking for?' She seemed much friendlier now that Ariane was absent. 'There's not much here, but... I could help you look if you like.'

'Um...' Could he tell her what he needed, or would that just cast suspicion on him? 'There was something I was working on when I lived here. I was just wondering if it was still here.' Surely that was safe enough. Besides, the documents he had been translating were hardly scandalous.

She frowned. 'Most of the loose papers were burned, I think. At least they were in my Circle. I was in Starkhaven,' she explained, seeing his confused expression. 'Then again, things were worse there.' Her eyes misted over.

Finn really did not want to start a discussion of mage politics in Thedas. Any prying would reveal how little he actually knew about the state of the world. And, if he were honest with himself, he wasn't sure how much he wanted to learn on the subject.

'I'm just going to check on my friend,' he said hastily. Enalla looked faintly disappointed. 'And my old room,' he added. Maybe his notes were still in there.

He hurried out into the hall, dodging passing mages. How were there so many people in the tower? He realized that he recognized barely any of them. They were probably from foreign Circles, like Enalla and Nikea.

He tried to ignore the level of organization this implied. Most of them were probably just refugees, not true rebels. He hoped.

He needed to talk to Ariane. She would know what their next move should be.

First though, he should check his old room. He took the stairs two at a time. The Tower felt like a funhouse – or, rather, what he assumed a funhouse would feel like, since he had never actually been in one. Everything he had known was twisted just enough to feel alien, while still looking horribly familiar. He wanted to knock on the walls to check if they were hollow.

The mages quarters on the third floor were quieter than the second floor. Finn hurried along, trying not to look at anything too hard. Finally he reached the narrow arch which led to the rooms he had once shared (to his intense discomfort, and his less-than-hygienic roommate's intense exasperation).

At first glance, the entrance appeared to be gone. On a second look, he realized that the doorway had been clumsily boarded up with old wood, reinforced with iron bars.

Finn looked around, baffled, for some kind of explanation. Was there something found in his rooms that the mages thought was dangerous? Were they on to his lack of enthusiasm for the civil war, which seemed to be all anyone here could think of?

He peered through a small gap in the boards, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the dark. The unlit room was barely recognizable without any of its furniture. He tried desperately to make out if his desk was still in there.

Movement shifted at the corner of Finn's vision and he jumped back, muffling a gasp. Someone was in there.

Suddenly, something cold brushed his shoulder. This time he yelped for real and spun around, mentally listing the spells that could protect him from bedroom-infesting monsters.

Ariane looked back questioningly at him.

'Maker, your hands are freezing,' he moaned, trying to slow his heart rate. Ariane had washed and cleaned her armour as well, although Finn could still spot lines of dirt embedded in the detail. Her blood writing stood out starkly against her fair skin in the poor light.

Nikea stood behind her, hands on hips. Ariane was studiously ignoring the other woman while looking supremely irritated.

'Master Rytel would like to see you both.' Nikea's gravelly voice was even more brusque than usual. Without waiting for a response, she started off down the hall at a brisk march. Ariane rolled her eyed at Finn before following.

'There's a man in my rooms,' Finn said, in a vague effort to alleviate some of the tension in the air. It was impossible to think of the altered chamber as anything but his rooms, anyways, and he was curious.

'Templar.'

Nikea's tone invited no questions, but Finn answered before he could stop himself. 'Really? One of...' The image of the crouching figure in the dark came back to him, this time with any one of many familiar faces attached.

'Not one of the guards of this Circle,' Nikea said, anticipating his question. 'A mage hunter. We hoped he would be able to tell us how the Templars were transporting the blackpowder.'

Finn waited for her to continue, but she seemed to consider the subject closed. He trudged after her in silence. The other mages they passed parted wordlessly to make way for Nikea's heavyset form. He could feel a twinge from their watching eyes, though.

'So.' Babbling will not help, he reminded himself sternly. 'Um. Is Master Rytel from the Anderfel Circle of Magi as well?' Babbling appeared to be occurring whether he wanted it to or not. Finn often felt as though his body was some kind of badly-behaved vessel which his brain was forced to endure in order to get anywhere. His mouth in particular seemed to have no respect for his authority.

'No,' Nikea answered, unexpectedly forcefully. 'He hails from Tevinter.' Her expression did not change, but her fists clenched slightly.

'What?' said Finn, failing to keep the shock out of his voice. 'But, I mean...' he started to correct hastily, then gave up. 'Well. Tevinter is, um. Bad. '

'I wouldn't voice that opinion in front of him,' she answered shortly.

She started up the stairs without adjusting her pace at all. Ariane lagged behind, looking hostile. Finn was having some difficultly blinking. A real magister here? The magisters were the bogeymen of his childhood, a reminder of what could happen if magic wasn't given the respect and control it deserved.

Of course all the stories couldn't be true – if the survival rate for Tevinter apprentices really was less than a tenth, then how were there as many magisters as the Chantry seemed to believe?

Enough was irrefutable, though. There was no getting around the fact that the Tevinter Circle had no bars on blood magic. Anything and everything was just a means to an end.

Finn was reminded uncomfortably of his conversation with Cassandra. The borderline blood magic involved with the creation of his blood dolls marked the second time he had chosen effectiveness over pure morality.

That couldn't count though. After all, no one was really hurt.

Nikea seemed unaware of his discomfort. She appeared to be lost in thoughts of her own. 'I'll be honest, I don't approve of all the Tevinter Circle's methods.' She tucked a stray piece of greying hair back into her bun. 'But there's no denying they are instrumental to our survival.'

The words were close enough to Finn's own thoughts to make him jump. Nikea noticed and shrugged noncommittally. 'Without them we have no reliable trade source,' she explained.

He hadn't even wondered how this many mages were eating or getting spell components without any outside support. He opened his mouth to ask more, but Nikea turned sharply and pulled open one of the metal doors on the outside wall of the corridor. They were standing in front of the old First Enchanters quarters.

Ariane walked in wordlessly, shoulders squared. With a panicked look at Nikea, who didn't even blink, Finn followed, trying to stay hidden behind Ariane. The effort was somewhat futile, given the difference in their heights, but being in close proximity to her made him feel slightly less inclined towards bolting.

The chambers were in surprisingly good shape, considering the state of the rest of the Tower. If not for the peeling paint on the dresser and the absence of any curtains, Finn almost might have thought he was in the Tower as it used to be.

The occupant, however, was definitely not Gregor.

Finn had envisioned the magister as a seven-foot monster, spitting fire like the demons in textbook pictures. Just as with Mouse, the reality was far less easy. He was surprised to see that Rytel was an elf. Elves were rarely raised to any importance in Fereldan, and he had assumed things would be even worse in Tevinter (since, surely, everything was worse in Tevinter).

What was more alarming, though, was how _nice_ Rytel looked. He was older, early fifties perhaps, with silvered hair and skin so pale it appeared translucent. His back was slightly stooped, and his large green eyes peered out with the slight squint of the shortsighted. If anything, he reminded Finn of his grandfather, a fragile, bent old man Finn had met on one of his few permitted visits to his parents home.

The man – Rytel - blinked in mild surprise at them as they entered. He was seated at the desk which had once belonged to Geagor. Rytel delicately folded his age-spotted hands over whatever he had been reading. 'You are?' His voice was soft and benign.

'Finn. Florian Aldebrant. Sir.' The honorific came out before Finn could stop it. When it came to authority figures, what spine he ever had dissolved completely.

The older mage nodded, and smiled very slightly. 'Magister Rytel. As I'm certain you've heard.'

The words were friendly, but the magister's tone was unusually flat, and his smile didn't reach his eyes. 'You used to live here?' Rytel gestured at their surroundings.

Finn was about to explain that he had lived in a completely different area, and a different one before that when he was an apprentice, then realized that the magister meant the Tower in general. 'Yes, sir.'

'You left.' Rytel's tone stayed detached. Only a flicker in his eyes suggested how damning he found this fact.

'Um.' Finn tried desperately to remember the explanation he had been practicing in his head. 'Yes. I was worried for my parents. I wanted to...' He had no idea what he had wanted to do. He looked helplessly at Ariane, who was gazing stoically at Rytel.

Rytel sighed, just slightly. He pushed back one sleeve of his well-cared for robes - the only robes Finn had seen among any of the mages here. Finn half-expected the man's arms to be crisscrossed with scars from dangerous blood magic rituals, but Rytel's forearms were pale and clean.

Of course, a man of Rytel's apparent status wouldn't need to draw upon his _own _blood. He suppressed a shudder.

'If you are going to fight for our cause,' Rytel said silkily, 'you will not have the luxury of worrying.' He fixed Finn with a cold stare. 'It is regrettable that our families cannot understand our struggle.' Finn couldn't imagine Rytel ever having been younger than he was now, let alone having a family. 'But it is certain.' A mental image of Rytel as a three-year-old, dressed in mage robes and coldly dictating instructions to a nanny appeared in Finn's mind unbidden. He bit his lip. 'How much practice do you have in combat?'

It took Finn a moment to realize that this had been a question. 'Not that much,' he admitted.

Rytel leaned back dismissively and Finn realized he should have lied. Rytel would be more likely to accept him if he were useful. Lying to power figures just seemed so unnatural, even ones this disturbing. 'I studied languages, mostly,' he explained. 'And healing.'

Truthfully, the healing had mostly been to dissuade anyone from thinking he should be conscripted, but he had found to his surprise that he was good at it. His own blood made him nauseous, but no one else's seemed quite real. Besides, thumbing through healing texts looking for a specific cure or potion recipe felt almost like translation. Even though most of the books on cures had been full of bizarre cartoon graffiti of tigers.

'Healers are useful.' To his surprise, Rytel actually sounded interested. 'Translators equally so.' Finn basked slightly in the praise before catching himself.

Rytel turned to Ariane, and his already cold face chilled another ten degrees. 'And you? What would a woman of the clans want with us?' A slight note of derision entered his flat voice. 'You're no mage.' It was not a question.

'I am here on behalf of my clan.' Ariane said. She at least seemed to have remembered her cover story, but her voice sounded oddly robotic. Actors we are not, Finn thought glumly.

'Which clan is this?'

Ariane started slightly. Finn realized they hadn't come up with an answer for that line of questioning.

'I can't say,' Ariane replied slightly shakily, obviously not wanting to risk attention by lying or bring her true clan to the magister's attention. 'But...' She dropped her eyes.

'We lost our Keeper to the Templars.' Her voice lost its manufactured quality and became genuinely sad. Rytel raised one silver eyebrow. 'Soon we may lose his pupil.'

Rytel was unmoved. 'We have recovered no Dalish prisoners. Your Keeper is probably dead.' His voice was cold with hostility. He turned his head back to his work.

Ariane looked slightly desperate. 'We wanted to say that...' She paused briefly to chew one fingernail. 'The clan is considering helping you.'

Rytel looked up again. Finn was briefly hopeful, but if anything the magister's expression was even less friendly. 'Oh?' he asked silkily.

'Not with active fighting,' Ariane said hastily. 'But we travel regularly, and we meet many along the road. We can direct trade your way, or pass on messages, or...' Her voice trailed off.

'I see.' Rytel, lowered his eyelids dismissively. 'There are others I should discuss this matter with. We will speak again.' Finn stood awkwardly for a moment, until Rytel opened his eyes again. 'Is that all?' Irritation crept into the magister's smooth voice.

'Yes,' Finn answered, realizing they had been dismissed. 'Sir,' he added reflexively.

The door creaked open again. Nikea must have been listening from the outside. She ushered them through, face studiedly cool. Finn could feel the magister's rheumy eyes boring into the back of his head, and hurried through before he could give in and turn around.


	9. Chapter 9

'That went well?' Finn asked uncertainly. After their encounter with the rebel mage leader, he and Ariane had been ushered to the dining hall and fed some gluey stew (clearly the cooks had departed along with the cleaning staff).

Enalla and Derrin (the male mage who they had met with Nikea) had hovered over them while they ate. The elf girl had attempted to make small talk, but Derrin had just glared. Clearly he was not happy at being placed on guard duty.

They had finally managed to escape after the meal, claiming exhaustion. That much was true. Finn hadn't slept properly in over twenty-four hours and his head ached fiercely. He and Ariane were holed up in what had been the Tower's chapel, the one place he had been certain would be deserted.

Ariane leaned back against the railing surrounding the altar. Finn had found Rytel terrifying. Ariane, however, appeared to have found him infuriating.

She snorted in derision. 'I've seen wolves with more forgiving faces. Trust me, he won't tolerate me here for long.' She turned around and crossed her arms, looking pensive. 'Well. It's not like we were planning on staying.'

'I can't believe they're trading with the Tevinters.'

Ariane shrugged. 'They're desperate. Did you see how thin most of them are?' Finn hadn't noticed, but recalling the baggy clothes most of the mages wore he realized it was true.

He frowned. 'The Imperials are using them. It's so obvious. They want to expand.' Had none of the rebels ever read a history? What did they think the Tevinters had in mind, charity?

'At least he liked you,' offered Ariane in a stab at optimism. 'Maybe if we say we're madly in love he'll keep me alive for your sake.'

'I...' Finn felt himself flushing furiously and gulped. Of all the jokes likely to make him more tense instead of less.

Besides, he hadn't liked Rytel's cold eyes and dismissive tone. The older man had seemed harmless, but so had Mouse and he was a demon. Seeming harmless had its benefits, especially for the particularly dangerous. Mouse had accused him of doing the same thing, he recalled suddenly, and attempted to banish the unpleasant thought. 'I don't think he liked me that much.'

Ariane frowned, looking worried. 'You think he figured out that you...' She left the sentence unfinished and glanced around surreptitiously for eavesdroppers. The last thing they needed was anyone here thinking Finn was a Chantry spy.

'He might have had some idea.' Finn looked around too, but the chapel was empty. He had half-expected it to be desecrated, but the wide room was surprisingly clean in comparison to the rest of the Tower. Still dilapidated, but most of the furniture had been left and someone even appeared to have cleaned the altar recently.

Finn wondered what had become of the Chantry sisters who had run the place. Sister Estella, the plump old sister who had been in charge most of his life there, had always had a particular fondness for him. When he had been bullied as a child she had allowed him to read in the chapel (even though his interests were clearly not religious).

The last time he had seen her had been just before the Templars announced they were leaving for good. Estella had been very concerned about the safety of citizens in the brewing civil war, and had spent much of her time knitting lumpy woolen stockings for the unsuspecting refugees in Denerim.

He remembered spending whole nights there, when he had found something new to study, or his roommate was trying to sneak a girl into their shared room. They left the candles at the altar burning all night, so you could sit in the corner of the room as late as you want without being disturbed.

Someone else had only come in once, when Finn was trying to get through a contraband tome on Tevinter power rituals in an effort to pick up more of the language. He had heard a mumbled version of the Chant of Light and frozen, certain he was going to be in trouble. It had taken him ten minutes of hiding to realize that it was Anders.

Finn shook his head to banish the memories. 'What happened with Nikea?' he asked Ariane, suddenly recalling the animosity he'd seen between the two women.

Ariane buried her head in her hands. 'Oh, gods. I told a couple of the mages to back off, just to get the really staring ones to clear out. Then I was subjected to an hour-long sermon on how,' she said, voice taking on a stern lecturing bark, 'if my presence was going to be tolerated I needed to treat the mages with respect and not treat them like lesser beings.'

She raised her head and rolled her eyes. 'She thinks she knows social ostracism?' Ariane indicated her leather armour and pointed ears with a sweeping important gesture. 'I'm _Dalish_. No one does outcast and self-righteous like we do.'

'You could offer a seminar,' Finn suggested brightly. 'Maybe they'd trade your book for tips on disparaging head shakes.'

'Amateurs,' Ariane said, grinning. The mention of the book made the smile fall off her face quickly, though. 'Ugh.' She shrugged gloomily. 'Maybe we should just tell them what we want. '

'Hello again, Master Vicious Blood Mage,' chirped Finn, with a beaming smile. 'I know before I said I was a defender of your cause, but the truth is I'm just here for an ancient magical artifact. Hope that doesn't throw a wrench in your world domination plans or anything.'

He was pleased to see Ariane smile again. 'Any luck finding it?' she asked.

He shook his head apologetically. 'Library's been cannibalized.' Not something he wanted to go into detail about. 'And from what I could see there's nothing in my old room.'

All the lying and danger, and he couldn't even find the stupid thing now that he was here. 'It's probably in the basement.'

'Okay,' Ariane said seriously. 'How do we get in there?'

Not possible, Finn thought pessimistically. Ariane's face of concentration stopped him from voicing that thought. He couldn't bear to disappoint her.

'Don't know yet,' he said instead. 'It's locked.'

'Do we need to steal a key?' she asked thoughtfully. She started to pace up and down the aisle, chewing her thumbnail. 'Maybe you can ask that city elf girl who was mooning over you,' she said, sounding slightly accusing.

'What?' said Finn blankly. He felt his face get hot again.

Ariane smiled slightly and removed her hand from her mouth. 'Nothing. So how do we get in?'

'I'm not sure.' Finn frowned as he considered the problem seriously for the first time. 'The door to get into the main part of the basement needs a mage and a Chantry official to open it at the same time. I've seen templars do it enough, but I don't think it will work if I try the password.'

The doors were designed to promote cooperation – no doubt the password was only effective when said by someone who had taken their vows. Finn could think of how such a restriction could be set, but no ideas on how to break it came to mind. 'And there don't seem to be any Chantry members offering to give us a hand.' He ran a hand through his hair absently.

'Can we break it down?' Ariane asked, fingering her sword belt. She had been forced to leave the blades in her room, but they hadn't technically been confiscated.

'Doubt it. It was made to hold off magical attacks.' Finn wracked his brain for a loophole and came up with nothing. Suddenly, a stray thought hit him. 'Wait a minute. What about the Templar in my room?'

'You mean the starving, probably mad prisoner who no doubt hates all mages with a vengeance?' Ariane said dryly.

Finn winced. 'Sorry. That was a bit stupid.' He felt himself flushing yet again and wished fervently he wasn't pale and red-haired. He had enough trouble being dignified as it was without blushing like a tomato.

'No.' Ariane seemed to be pondering something. Her large green eyes took on a slightly manic glow. 'You had a point, actually. He might hate all mages, but I'm not a mage, and if you said you weren't with the rebels...' She put one narrow finger back in her mouth, chewing distractedly on the nail. 'Maybe he'd be willing to bargain for his release.'

Finn frowned at her hand. 'Don't do that. It'll start bleeding and all the corpse-dust left on your skin from this morning will get in.'

'The door to the basement might be magical,' she continued, ignoring him, 'but the one holding him in was just wood and metal. I could probably tear it down fairly quietly.'

'And then you'll get an infection,' Finn said definitely. 'And die.'

Ariane indicated the window, where the docks creaked on the grey water of the lake. 'There were quite a few boats out front.' She closed her eyes to consider the possibilities. 'Maybe we could steal one. Or swim across.'

Finn shot an alarmed look at the steely waves. 'I can't swim.' Not strictly true, but he was certain he would panic in those fish and weed infested waters.

'Boat, then.' Ariane clapped her hands together. The sound echoed against the high stone ceiling. 'We'll start around an hour after midnight. I'll come get you,' she added, before he could ask how he was supposed to know when it was the right time.

Finn sighed. What they planned to do was preposterous, but he was too tired to think anymore.

'Wish the Warden was here.' The words came out before he could stop them. 'They'd just hand it over. Probably gift-wrapped.'

Ariane smiled bitterly as they wandered back into the hall. 'Then again, he could have taken all of them,' she pointed out. 'Sadly not an option for us.'

* * *

Thank-you for reading! My attempt to break up a rather long chapter left me with one normal chapter and one weirdly short one, so I thought I'd post them both in one go.

Again, if you have any advice please leave a review or a PM :-) I'm in the process of editing this thing (and cutting a lot of stuff I realized was unnecessary) so I really appreciate any help!


	10. Chapter 10

Moonlight filtered in through the window the small room Ariane had been assigned to as she rose from the floor. She would never get used to the squishy mattresses humans insisted on sleeping in.

She hadn't expected to be able to sleep at all, but exhaustion had beat out paranoia and she realized it was at least an hour later than when she had intended to wake up. With any luck though, that meant the tower should be even more deserted.

As quietly as possible, she slipped into her armour and boots. She hesitated briefly before strapping on her sword belt – it would be difficult to explain if they were caught. She couldn't risk not being able to get back to them, though. After all, if they _were _caught she might need them.

She noted that her longsword, Rain of Petals (a gift from her father when she had become an adult in the clan) needed a whetstone. The shorter blade was the one Banic had referred to as her best friend. He had claimed she paid more attention to the sword than to him. It remained was stubbornly sharp as always, and whispered against the leather of its scabbard as she slid it into her belt.

Her first step was down to the kitchens, to refill the food stores in her pack. She felt a brief twinge of guilt as she remembered how small the rations at the mages' meals had been. There was no getting around the fact that she had only packed enough food for one person to get to Lothering and back, though. She took from the stashes of dried bread and fruit as sparingly as she could.

She crept up the stairs, feeling her way in the dark. She had always disliked multi-storied buildings. The ground was meant to stay under your feet, and no matter how solid the floor she always felt the sense of void below her, that she was not somewhere she was meant to be. Humans, however, seemed obsessed with stairs. The Tower was particularly full of the damnable things.

The chambers on the fourth floor – Finn had mentioned that they used to belong to the Templars – were small and narrow, with anonymous unmarked doors. It took her a bit of searching to find Finn's room. The mage was sleeping fitfully, head buried under a pillow. She walked over as quietly as she could and shook his shoulder gently.

'...not listening,' he mumbled, yanking the pillow even harder over his head. 'Stupid gerbil...'

'Finn?' she whispered. 'It's me.' She shook him again a little harder.

'Don't need you...' He pulled his knees up to his chest.

Ariane sighed. She wanted to be humane but there was no time for this. She grabbed both his arms and hauled him upright. 'Wake up,' she hissed.

His round hazel eyes flew open. 'Ah! Andraste!' His usually neat red hair stuck up in tangled clumps all around his face. His eyes grew even wider as he recognized Ariane. 'Why are you...' he said wonderingly.

Ariane flicked her eyes to the moon, visible through the window.

Finn followed her gaze and the confusion cleared from his face. 'Oh, yeah.' He swung his long skinny legs over the edge of the bed, looking slightly disappointed for some reason. 'Right. Is it...'

'Time, yes.' Ariane grabbed his wooden staff from its place in the corner and thrust it into his hand. Finn stared at it, still looking sleepy and bewildered.

'You alright?' she asked tentatively. 'You were talking in your sleep.'

'Really?' Finn sounded alarmed. 'About what?'

Ariane tried to remember the exact words. 'Something about gerbils...'

'Oh,' he said, looking relieved. 'That's okay then.' He pushed himself out of bed and straightened his robes. 'Shall we?' He looked nervously towards the door.

Ariane wondered if she should mention that his hair looked like a sparrow's nest, but then decided it would probably just worry the fastidious mage unnecessarily. She hoisted her pack, which was distinctly heavier than it had been when they arrived. 'I realized we were going to be low on food, so I grabbed some from the kitchens. Oh, come on,' she added, seeing his guilty expression and remembering her own misgivings. 'I think they owe us. Think of it as payment for getting the basement open.' She ducked around the door and headed back into the hallway.

'Oh, hell.' Finn followed, obviously trying to be quiet. To Ariane's hunter ears his footsteps were painfully loud. 'I didn't think of that.' He chewed his lower lip. 'Do you think we'll be giving them access to anything dangerous down there?'

Ariane hadn't thought of that either. She had no idea what kind of thing was in the Tower's storage, or how much damage it could do in Rytel's hands. 'I doubt anything worse than blood magic. Or blackpowder.'

Suddenly, movement caught her eye in the dark. She yanked Finn behind a pillar and flattened herself against the stone wall. 'Shit.'

'What?' Finn whispered back, trying to lean out to look.

She shoved him back again, listening hard for footsteps. 'Someone's there.' She couldn't see them, but she could feel them. Her instincts on this, at least, were rarely wrong. She fervently wished she hadn't brought her weapons. Overconfidence on her part – she had been so certain she could evade anyone who might see. The quiet footsteps grew louder, echoing slightly in the huge room. She desperately wracked her brain for an excuse.

Suddenly, her joke from earlier came back to her. _... pretend we're madly in love_... On pure instinct, she grabbed the front of Finn's robes and pressed her mouth hard against his, working her free hand into his messy hair.

Just in time. A girl's voice from nearby asked, 'Finn? Is that – oh!' Ariane pulled her head back, doing her best to look like she had been interrupted in the throes of passion. At least her natural instinct to look guilty and trapped was working to her advantage for once. Enalla, the elf girl who had been assigned to watch them, stood holding a candle. 'Oh. Crap.'

The girl's face was red, and she didn't seem to know what to do with her hands. Her fair hair had been tied back into a sloppy bun, with pieces escaping to frame her narrow face. 'Ah, Nikea asked me to...' She blushed even deeper. 'Shit.'

Finn's mouth was gaping like a fish. If possible, he looked even more mortified then Enalla. Ariane prayed that he was awake enough now to play along. 'Hi,' he croaked. 'We were just...'

'Going for a walk.' Ariane supplied. Gods, there had to be less awkward ways to be stealthy than this.

'Right.' Enalla backed away, shooting Ariane a slightly scathing look. She didn't seem to have noticed how armed they were at all. 'I'll just, um...' Her voice trailed off, and her eyes darted from side to side.

'Get me if you need anything, yeah?' she said finally, before escaping back up the hallway.

Ariane released Finn as soon as Enalla was out of sight. 'Sorry,' she apologized, feeling profoundly embarrassed. 'Panicked a bit.'

'Yeah.' Finn sounded even more bewildered than usual. 'Me too.' His mouth was red where she had kissed him. Idiotically, she felt herself blushing too. She had a weird urge to fix his hair.

'Which way?' she asked more sharply then she meant to, drying to dispel the paralyzing awkwardness which seemed to have filled the air.

'Um,' Finn closed his eyes briefly, and then pointed down a hallway towards the stairwell. 'Downstairs.'

Finn led the way downstairs and Ariane followed, listening intently for any more late-night wanderers. Was it possible Nikea had told her cronies to check if they were still in their beds? Ariane couldn't believe the paranoia of this place. She might not be a mage, but she had shown no sign of any aggression to the mages. Still, everyone treated her like an unfortunate add-on, something to be tolerated only because one of their own kind said it was necessary.

Your people are hardly better, her conscience whispered.

She watched Finn out of the corner of her eye. What would her own clan do if she appeared with him in tow? He would be lucky if he weren't shot on sight. She could vouch that he was kind or clever or harmless all she wanted, but they'd never really accept him. Maybe the Dalish were Thedas's authorities on hypocrisy as well as victimization.

The hallways outside the boarded-up door were thankfully deserted. Ariane crouched with her back to the rough barricade, keeping watch down both corridors. Now they needed to get his attention without getting anyone else's. There was a small gap in the door, presumably how the mages kept the templar fed enough to live. Maybe they could pass notes through there?

Finn seemed to have realized the same issue. With a whispered incantation, he traced a hand along the floor in a wide circle around them. It glowed orange for a moment, and a faint buzz filled Ariane's ears, as though she had ventured too close to a wasps' nest. 'Silence field,' he explained. 'So no one will overhear.'

She nodded. 'Good thinking.' Finn looked rather pleased with himself.

Ariane rose and tapped gently on the door. 'Hello? We'd like to speak to you.'

No one responded. Ariane hoped that the man hadn't gone and died while they'd been waiting. That would just be plain inconsiderate.

Finn knocked harder on the door, obviously having more faith in the sound-blocking spell than Ariane did. 'Ser?' he called. 'Ser Templar? Can you-'

A hoarse croak answered, making both of them jump. 'Can't you mages leave me in peace? I told you I don't know about any damned blackpowder.'

'I'm not a mage,' Ariane said, keeping her voice as steady as possible. She peered into the gloomy room. 'I'm here to help you.' She tried to remember the details she had invented – agents of the Divine, here for an artifact...

A wheezing sound began. It took Ariane a moment to realize it was laughter. 'You think I'm stupid?' The laugh dissolved into a rattling cough. 'You might not be a mage, Dalish, but you can't tell me your friend there just wears dresses for sport.' Ariane felt her eyes widen involuntarily. The Templar's vision was far sharper than she had expected if he could see them so easily.

'Leave me in peace,' the man croaked, then went silent.

'What's wrong with him?' Ariane asked Finn in an undertone. She had expected the templar to be poorly cared for, but this man sounded seriously ill. Surely in a tower full of mages, one of the healers would be instructed to keep a valuable prisoner alive.

'Lyrium withdrawal,' Finn whispered back, looking troubled. 'He's dying.'

'Well spotted,' the templar said sarcastically. Ariane made a mental note that the man's hearing seemed freakishly clear too.

Ariane readied her practiced lie, then gave up. Neither of them was any good at cover stories, and if the templar was truly dying, he probably cared little what fake mission they were on anyways. Instinct told her to be honest. 'Listen. We might not exactly be friends of your order, but I think maybe we can help each other.'

The Templar wheezed hollowly again. 'I'm no friend of my order either, little girl,' he said, with a barking cough. 'Some of us weren't so quick to abandon the Divine.' Even without seeing his face, Ariane could hear the bitterness in his voice. A faint hope lit in her chest. 'If you're looking for Templar secrets, you probably know as much as I do,' the Templar said dismissively.

'Some mages didn't leave the Chantry either, Ser,' Finn said. He sounded oddly sad. Ariane had assumed that Finn had stayed with the Chantry out of habit, but now it occurred to her that it might have been, at least partially, out of faith.

She suddenly felt guilty for having let her disdain for the shemlan religion show. Finn had been nothing but respectful of her culture (if a little over-enthusiastic). She owed him the same courtesy.

The templar paused before responding. When he spoke again, his voice was resigned. 'Why are you here? Neither of you looks half mean-enough for this bunch.' Ariane heard someone shifting through the door. 'You should get out of the madhouse while you still can.'

'There's something we need to get,' Ariane explained, still determined to tell the truth. 'A book.' The templar snorted. 'It's not dangerous,' she objected, 'but it's very important. We think it might be locked in the basement.'

'Basement's sealed off. Templars closed it before they were slaughtered by the bloody Tevinters.'

'What?' Finn asked, eyes wide. Ariane wished the Templar hadn't said anything.

'Those that didn't run,' the Templar said grimly. 'Can't say I blame them.' Finn looked horrified.

'The storage rooms are locked,' Ariane said, quickly changing the subject. 'But it takes two people to open them. A mage and a Templar.'

The templar was silent for a minute. When he spoke, his voice sounded even more tires and hoarse. 'What's your name, Dalish?'

'Ariane,' she answered. 'This is Finn.'

'What's yours?' Finn asked in a small voice.

'Ser Rowan.' Te templar laughed again. 'Well, used to be. Suppose it's just Rowan, now that I'm excommunicated.'

Silence fell for a minute. Ariane crossed her fingers behind her back, chewing on a nail on her other hand. Finn absently slapped it out of her mouth.

Finally, the Templar sighed. The sound was long and hollow. 'A book is really worth this to you? Hell.' She heard Ser Rowan's knees crack as he pulled himself to his feet. His breath was hard and rattling. 'Open 'er up. We'll see if I can live long enough to get down the stairs.'


	11. Chapter 11

The basement was down a flight of cracked stone steps, dusty with disuse. Ariane took up the rear, keeping one eye behind them for followers, and the other on their Templar companion.

Ser Rowan gave her the impression of a large man who had shrunk after being washed badly. He might have even been handsome once, Ariane realized, but withdrawal and starvation had taken its toll. He was shorter than she had expected from his gruff, gravelly voice; Finn was taller by several inches. Rowan might have been burly once, but now he was painfully thin. His broad cheekbones stood out over the cavernous hollows of his cheeks. His eyes were sharp, but his black hair was lank and appeared to be falling out in places. His skin was grey, and a pale sheen of sweat covered his face.

Still, his steps seemed sure, and he was present enough to make it clear he planned on ignoring them the whole way.

The steel door to the storage rooms had clearly been through a lot. The wall around it was scorched and blackened, and the floor had cracked, revealing the hard black dirt underneath. Ariane shuddered to think of how much power it would have taken to break the thick stone tiles. The door, however, remained stubbornly shut.

Rowan stopped in front of the door. He was breathing hard already – even the stairs seemed to have been an exertion for him. Without looking at either of them, he walked towards the archway and whispered the password, too quietly for either of them to hear.

When he was done, he leaned back and looked wearily at Finn. The mage looked panicked for a moment, then his face cleared and he relaxed. He held out one hand. A violet orb materialized, and then flew with a whoosh into the door.

Machinery clinked from inside the workings of the black iron lock. The door slowly swung inward, revealing the stone corridor beyond.

Ariane stepped through and was immediately faced with another door. She frowned. Why was she never on the right side of a door?

Cautiously, she examined the door's heavy iron handles. This one's lock appeared to be more conventional.

'Phylactery chamber,' Finn whispered. 'Used to be, anyways. We can go around.' He indicated the passage to their right, which looked clearer.

Beyond the door to the right was a series of long hallways and boarded off rooms. Ariane was glad that Finn knew his way – she would have been lost in moments. Rowan followed them silently, his face a mask of mute hostility.

Stacked haphazardly against the wall were crates and chests, some of their contents strewn across the floor. She tore one of the lids off. It appeared to be someone's personal effects – a set of worn mage's robes, a few pages from a workbook, a small jeweled pin. The Templars must have thrown everything they could in here before the storage rooms were sealed off. She tried another and found a stash of medical supplies. Surreptitiously, she grabbed a roll of bandages a jar of burn salve and stashed them in her pack. None of the chests seemed to contain anything of Finn's.

Finn didn't seem to be having much more luck. He ducked into a small unfurnished room to check series of chests. He frowned as he dug through the contents. 'Ser Rowan?'

The Templar looked up from making his slow way down the hall. 'I said I'd get you in here, not that I'd talk about it,' he barked. Finn quailed visibly. 'What do you want?'

Finn held up a small bottle, retrieved from the chest. Even through the grimy glass, Ariane could see the blue liquid inside was glowing. Lyrium. 'Here.'

Finn tossed the vial to Rowan, who caught it easily and held it up to the light. The viscous potion sloshed against the glass.

'...Cheers,' said Rowan grudgingly, his face looking slightly less haggard. Then, in one movement, he upended the bottle into his mouth.

'You should probably... not all at once...' Finn objected, '...Never mind,' he said, as Rowan drained the last of the lyrium potion.

Ariane wandered down the hall and around a corner. Instead of more storage rooms, she was faced with a row of prison cells. The bars were rusted, but the locks seemed to be secure. Inside were piles of filthy straw, bundled rags, and-

'Are those...' Finn asked tentatively. He reached one arm through the bars to touch the shape lying on the straw. A shrivelled hand fell out. Finn yelped and jumped back.

Ariane realized that what she had taken for rags were shredded mage robes, discoloured and filthy. The cells were filled with the dead.

'Wasn't just the mages who split up, when we heard the rebellion was going to be official.' Rowan had come up so quietly behind her that she hadn't heard him. His rough voice was bitter and sad. 'I wasn't posted here, but I remember it. Mages declared intent to retake the tower, some of the Templars wanted to go back to the Chantry with the mage holdouts.'

He looked at Finn, who was still staring in horror at the corpse in the cage. He hadn't mentioned prison cells to her, Ariane realized – surely he would have if he'd known about them. They must have been out of use during peace.

'The rest of the Templars stayed,' Ser Rowan continued. He was still sweating and frail, but the lyrium had put some colour back into his face. He looked around, mouths set in a grim line. 'Locking this place up must have been one of the last things they did before the Tevinters showed up.'

The Templar had known that they would find these. She felt a wave of fury that he hadn't warned them.

'So they just left people down here,' she said. It took some effort to keep her voice steady. The idea was too horrific to think about. The fingers on the dead mage's protruding hand were worn into points of bone. He had died trying to claw his way out.

'Prisoners, yeah.' Rowan shook his head. 'Bloody inhumane. Then again, that lot,' here he gestured at the ceiling, where the rebel mages were sleeping on the upper floors, 'were hardly sweet. Half the servants who stayed are dead, and all the Chantry sisters.'

'Really?' Finn asked in a small voice. His eyes were vacant, and he couldn't seem to tear himself away from the cells. Ariane touched his arm and he jumped, then smiled weakly at her.

The Templar watched them with an odd look of sympathy in his eyes. Finally, he sighed and shook his head again. 'Listen, both of you. If we make it out of here, get as far from this bloody war as you can. That's what I'm planning.' He looked around the dungeon with cold fury. 'I'm not fighting for anyone who would let _this_ happen and call it collateral.'

Ariane didn't answer. Steeling herself, she hurried down the hall, intending to get them away from the disturbing scene as quickly as possible. Visions of being similarly trapped played out in her mind, and she realized there was nothing she could have done that the mages hadn't. She rounded the corner, still thinking, and walked straight into a monster.

All her trained skills momentarily abandoned her. 'Fuck!' The creature, which had been crouched on the stone floor, rose unnaturally quickly at the sound of her voice.

She bit back another yell as it turned. The thing towered over her, a misshaped hump on its back rising above its neck-less head. Pale tumour-like protrusions poked through its matted clothes. Its face was a mess of broken blood vessels and scar tissue, and its one visible eye shone a murderous yellow.

The creature lunged for her with a roar, much faster than she would have thought possible given its size. She dodged, but its huge arm caught her on a backhand and sent her flying into the wall. Gods, it was _strong_. She rolled to the side, narrowly missing being raked by its claws.

The monster turned as Finn rounded the corner in response to her scream. No sign of the Templar. Ariane took advantage of the creature's distraction to leap up and draw her swords. The monster howled at the sight of the steel and lashed out at her. Finn, who had turned an alarming shade of grey, started whispering under his breath, moving his hands in complicated patterns.

Ariane slashed at the creature, opening a wide gash on its arm. It tried to strike back, but missed by a foot. Its other arm flailed wildly. Ariane stayed at a cautious distance, trying to figure out where the creature's previous agility had gone. Whatever Finn had done seemed to be interfering with its sight. She decided not to wait for the effects to wear off. She thrust her longsword into its chest as hard as she could. The blade scraped against the creature's misshapen ribs, finally sinking into something soft. It collapsed onto the floor. Using her other blade, she slashed through what passed for its throat.

The Templar had reappeared. Rather than looking alarmed, he peered at the dead monster with mild interest. Ariane wiped her bloody swords on the rags that the thing had worn. The fabric was filthy and tattered, but surprisingly soft. Remnants of mage robes, she realized.

'Hunger abomination,' said Finn dully, confirming Ariane's suspicions. He seemed to be avoiding looking at the corpse. Some of the mages must have turned to demons when they started to starve, she realized. She shuddered, then glared at the Templar. Rowan should have warned them that the basement could be dangerous. Being angry at him was a lot more satisfying than being angry with herself for letting her guard down.

Rowan saw her expression and shrugged. 'I assumed they'd all be dead by now.' He stepped back to evade the growing pool of blackish blood leaking from the dead abomination. 'Damn, you're neither of you as sweet as you look, yeah?' he added, grinning. His hollow cheeks combined with the bared teeth made him look like a skull. Ariane didn't smile back.

'Through here,' Finn said flatly, starting down the hallway on their left without waiting.

Ariane hurried to catch up. 'Finn..?' she said quietly, trying to keep her voice below the Templar's hearing.

'Someone you knew?' Rowan asked loudly, indicating the abomination. Ariane swore inwardly.

'I'd just like to get out of here.' Finn mumbled, almost inaudibly. 'Please,' he added, looking so wretched Ariane wanted to hug him and turn around immediately.

Book, she reminded herself. This is worth it to get the book back for her people. Even so, she wasn't sure the happiness the book would bring her clan balanced out the look on Finn's face.

'Okay.' Ariane found that she had no idea what else to say. She put one hand awkwardly on his arm.

The dank hallways twisted and turned. Ariane was glad Finn seemed to know where he was going. She would have been lost a hundred times already. They passed other sealed-off rooms, and she deliberately avoided looking inside.

The storage room was through a nondescript metal door. Ariane listened for anything moving inside. Silence. Slowly she pushed the door open. A wide stone cavern filled with clutter greeted her. Chests were stacked on top of heaps of books and strange-looking artifacts, with stones and potion ingredients strewn randomly around the floor. A leering stone gargoyle grinned at one wall, and the corners were filled with cabinets belching papers.

'Oh, hey,' said Finn, sounding slightly more cheerful. 'Everything's still here.' Ariane stared at the mess, aghast. How were they going to find anything in here?

She shook herself. They had to start somewhere. 'You take that side,' she directed Finn. Rowan leaned impassively in the doorway. She had the feeling he was smirking, but didn't want to give him the satisfaction of looking. She marched to the other side of the room, and looked at the endless heaps of chests with a sigh, before digging in.

The first chest she tried was filled with moldy textbooks; the next was filled with bottles of some kind of purple swamp weed that smoked and stung her eyes. Why did the mages keep all this rubbish?

After digging through a stack of papers and a pile of discarded robes with no success, she found an area of the mess which looked more promising. Several locked chests had been hastily shoved into a corner, blocking a bookcase, and several of them had what appeared to be names engraved on them. She would bet they contained the personal effects of mages who had lived here before the war. She scanned the engravings.

A dark brown wood chest at the bottom had an extra nameplate added underneath the first. Someone had run out of space when labelling the chest. Ariane grinned. She shoved the cases on top of it to the ground, where they landed with a resounding crash. 'Finn! Here!'

'You found it?' He rushed over, and actually smiled when he saw the chest. 'Oh, brilliant, it's not even damaged,' he said, kneeling to examine it. He sat back on his heels and looked expectantly at Ariane. 'Right, how do we get it open?'

Ariane looked at him blankly. 'You don't have a key?'

'Well, I did, but I sort of... lost it.' Finn tried to pry the lid open to no avail. 'Can't you pick the lock?' he asked hopefully. He peered inside the keyhole. 'It's not a very good one.'

'I've never picked a lock before.' She experimentally kicked the lid. No change. 'Isn't there magic or something for this?'

'Um.' Finn considered, poking the brass lock with one finger. 'Maybe we could melt it? Or freeze it?'

'Or smash it.' Ariane unsheathed her shorter sword. Maybe she could bash the lock off with the hilt.

'Bloody hell. You're both hopeless.' Ariane jumped. She hadn't noticed Rowan moving from the doorway. The Templar dropped a handful of bottles on a nearby table – he must have been hunting for more lyrium potions. He picked up a shiny gold brooch from the floor and extended the pin. 'Move over,' he barked, kneeling in front of the chest. Ariane realized he was smiling again.

She was about to ask how a member of a religious order knew how to pick a lock, but seeing as her own ideas for getting the chest open had amounted to hitting it as hard as possible, she felt she wasn't in a position to complain. She stood back and let Rowan work.

Finn tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention. 'Amaranthine's by water, right?' he asked quietly. His usually spaces eyes were oddly intense. Ariane realized he was still shaking slightly from their fight in the hallway.

'I think so,' said Ariane, confused by the sudden interest. 'You're the one who's from there, not me.'

Finn gestured around at the trashed room. 'I'm from here.'

He paused for a moment. 'Do you think there are boats heading to the Free Marches?'

Ariane looked into his eyes. Rowan was still working on the chest, but she didn't trust that he wasn't listening, so she couldn't ask Finn if he meant what she thought he did. 'I don't know,' she said slowly. Even with her spotty knowledge of politics, she knew that the Free Marches were a mess. There was no reason to go there... unless you were looking for something specific. Something like a functional Eluvian.

This is an insane idea, she told herself. We'll just get ourselves killed. She needed to get this done and go home, where there was real, non-insane work to be done, Even if they found the Warden, how could he fix the state of the world? He was just one person.

He fixed it once before, the traitor part of her mind whispered back.

'We could find out,' was what she said instead. She smiled nervously. 'I think I'd like that.'

'Me too.' Her agreement seemed to be a relief to Finn. He relaxed visibly, and looked around with more interest than she had seen before. His eyes widened and he smiled as he spotted something in the opposite corner. 'Hey! There's Eleni Zinovia!'

Ignoring the Templar, he vaulted over an overturned chair and approached a stone statue of a severe woman. Ariane realized that it was the same Tevinter statue she had seen eight years earlier, the one the Warden had spoken to.

Finn waved energetically at it. 'Hi! You said we wouldn't speak again, but here I-'

Ariane detected movement out of the corner of her eye. She started to yell a warning, but a flash of light blinded her, accompanied by an ear-splitting crack. She instinctively drew her swords, blinking rapidly to try to clear her eyes.

Finn was standing, open-mouthed, in front of the smoking ruin that had been Eleni Zinovia. The spell that had missed him had taken the stone woman's head clean off and scorched the stone wall behind her. A small group of mages stood in the doorway, weapons in hand. Leading them was the elf girl, Enalla, looking distinctly less foolish holding a smoking iron staff. They'd been caught.

* * *

Thank-you for reading! Apologies for the terrible action writing... My theory is that if I keep trying to write fight scenes it will eventually get easier, but it's slow going.

If you have any advice or suggestions, please leave me a review or a PM! I'm making a lot of changes as I edit this thing, and would really appreciate it.


	12. Chapter 12

It seemed extremely unfair to Finn that he was about to die. He had just decided, of his own free will, to do something really heroic. Even though the thought of going to Kirkwall terrified him, the Tower had proved, in his mind, that the world needed the Warden back.

He considered asking the furious mages in the doorway for a few more minutes to enjoy the feeling of having been brave before they blew him up. Somehow, though, he didn't think they'd be willing to make allowances.

The friendly elf girl he had met earlier didn't look so friendly now, with fire pluming at the end of her staff. Another mage held the bladed end of his own staff to Ariane's throat. Finn counted two more behind them, including Derrin, the man he had met earlier.

Rowan still kneeled by the chest, a bottle of lyrium potion in hand. 'Hi.' The Templar waved at the furious mages with a skeletal grin.

Enalla ignored him. 'Do you think we're stupid?' she yelled at Ariane, voice shrill. 'Not to notice templar spies under our own roof?' The girl's face was white, and her fists were clenched in rage. Finn considered pointing out that they had opened the basement for the mages at great personal risk, but he figured the fact that they had freed a Templar prisoner and were clearly intending to steal an ancient relic probably outweighed that favour.

Ariane put both her hands up defensively, swallowing hard against the blade at her throat. 'Okay. This looks bad. But-'

'And you!' Enalla yelled, whirling around to point the flaming staff at Finn. 'You're a mage! How can you be working with them? Don't you see what they do to people like us?' Her voice choked. Finn was shocked to see actual tears in her eyes. What could have happened to her to make her so angry and frightened of the templars? He had always been ignored, but never abused. How hard had things been for the mages who had resisted?

Anti-spellcaster area spell would be good, said the functional part of his mind. Also known as mana clash. That was complicated though, and took time to cast. He glanced at Ariane, hoping to signal her for a distraction, but she was busy eyeing the mage holding her at bladepoint.

Enalla clutched her staff with both hands. Flames spurted out around her fingers. 'Master Rytel will want to deal with you himself. But if you ask me, I should just kill you he-'

Suddenly, her voice cut off. She made a retching sound, then doubled over and clutched at her throat. The fire in her hands faded into wisps of smoke.

The other mages recoiled in shock. Rowan, whose thin hand was outstretched towards Enalla, grinned again. The Templar looked healthier than he had earlier. Healthy enough to use the Templars' silencing ability.

Finn pushed past his surprise and started the spell that had come to mind, praying that the mages would be distracted enough not to notice. One of them charged Rowan, purple light balling in his hand. Ariane tripped the one holding her down and snatched up the stack of papers in the chest, hugging them to her like a life jacket.

Finn tried to hold the geometric patterns of the spell in his mind, feeling the tingling sensation of power rising through his hands. He hoped that his aim would hold. Getting hit with the backlash of his own spell would just not be a dignified way to go down.

The spell came rushing through his fingers in a surge of blue light. It enveloped the third of the room nearest to the door. Ariane yelped and shielded her eyes. The glare turned her into a black silhouette against a pale blue background, but without any connection to the Fade in her conscious mind, she didn't feel the blast of power behind it.

The mages were not so lucky. Those who had had shields up had been distracted by their leader's flailing as she tried to get her throat working. A pale blue shadow wrenched itself free of each of their shoulders, as their mana was forcibly torn from their bodies. They fell like a load of bricks.

Finn staggered as a wave of dizziness hit him. He had only really tried to learn that spell because it was hard and he wanted to see if he could do it. He hadn't even used it since his excursion with the Warden seven years ago. He had forgotten how much power it took. His limbs felt strangely weightless, and his ears seemed to have been plugged with cotton wool.

One of the mages on the ground, the human man from earlier, was facing him. His jaw was hanging open and his eyes were blank. Blood dripped from where he had smashed his chin on the floor, but he didn't move. Were they all dead? They couldn't be. He wasn't any good at fighting. They were probably just unconscious.

Someone yanked his arm, and he stumbled forward. 'Come on!' Ariane hissed, holding the papers to her chest. A thin line of blood trickled from her throat where the staff blade had been. He almost reached over to heal it, before realizing that his energy was spent. He was badly out of practice.

She had a small pouch looped through her fingers too. Finn realized he recognized it. 'Hey, my coins,' he said, pointing at them. The coins were a relic of his childhood. They didn't need any money in the Tower, and he had never really figured out how much each kind was worth, but he had liked matching each coin to its country of origin and the ruler at the time. He had been trying to collect one from each year. He hadn't known they were still in the chest.

Taking them was a good idea though, he realized. Money would help them travel faster. Assuming they could get out of the Tower at all.

The basement seemed much longer running back through it. Their footsteps echoed in the darkened halls. Ariane and Rowan were arguing about the best route out of the Tower, but Finn's mind kept going back to the limp bodies they'd left behind on the floor. He hadn't meant to seriously hurt anyone. Should he go back and check on them? They'd been trying to hurt him, though. Why did he still feel like a traitor?

It took him a moment to realize that Ariane's last question had been directed at him. 'Huh?' he asked, as they reached the foot of the stone stairs.

'I said, which door? Can you open the front?' Ariane lept nimbly up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Rowan followed much more slowly, still moving stiffly.

Finn ran through the possible exits in his head. 'I don't think I can get it open. They've probably changed the password,' he said, following as fast as he could. 'And there aren't many other ways out.' The Tower was built to be impregnable. Originally it had been to keep attackers out; later, the same construction served to keep mages in.

'It'll have to be windows,' said Rowan, gasping with exertion as they reached the metal door at the top of the stairs. 'The windows are reinforced, but I think I can clear the enchantment.' The Templar hardly looked like he could stand up properly, much less perform a cleansing ritual. They didn't have many other options, though.

Ariane shoved the doors open, and they ran across the open hall as fast as they could. Finn wished fervently that the layout of the Tower could be a little more straightforward. What was the point of making all of the halls circular? Maybe they wanted the mages to get more exercise or something. Finn certainly couldn't remember running this far in a long time, so if so it was working.

They reached the entrance hall, and Finn doubled over, breathing hard. He could feel the faint buzzing that indicated mana returning to his mind, but he still felt dizzy.

Ariane walked over to one of the narrow windows, testing the glass with the end of her sword. Rowan had his eyes closed, and his brow was furrowed in focus.

Footsteps suddenly pounded down the hall they had come from, combined with raised voices. Finn jumped and looked at the other two, panicked. Rowan was still working on his ritual, and judging by Ariane's grim face, the glass was still impenetrable.

One of the voices turned to a chant. Instinct took over, and Finn brought up a flickering blue shield just as the entrance hall exploded into orange light. A fireball blasted against his barrier, the fire flowing like a liquid against the transparent wall. A few flames seeped through cracks in his shaky shield. The heat was blistering.

Suddenly, the buzzing in his mind went dead. Finn felt a strange feeling of emptiness, and the floor seemed to lurch beneath his feet. His shield vanished with a faint pop, and the few remaining flames withered into black ash. Rowan stood with two hands on the window, feet braced against the floor.

While before the window had given Finn the slightly shifting, uneasy feeling that that always came with an enchantment, now he felt... nothing. Not even the hum of magic that should be coming from the many magic-users in the Tower. Was this how non-mages saw the world? Being in a magical null field felt like being deaf. In a way, it was strangely peaceful.

Ariane hit the glass hard with the hilt of her sword. It cracked audibly, and spiderweb lines appeared all over the pane. The next hit shattered it.

Ariane ducked to avoid the rain of glass shards. Grabbing Rowan's arm, she hoisted him out the window and onto the grass outside. Finn could see other mages, down the darkened hallway. One of them was holding his staff at the ready. It was still smoking from the fireball.

Ariane pulled his hand, and he pulled himself up onto the windowsill. The jagged edge of the frame cut into his hands painfully, making him wince. Pulling his legs over, he dropped onto the ground. The coast looked oddly serene in the dark. He could hear the soothing sound of the water lapping at the dock.

Ariane passed the heavy sheaf of papers they had come for through the window, then pulled herself through. Finn saw a flash as the mages threw another spell their way, but it fizzled when it hit the Templar's null field. Ariane fell to the dirt in a crouch.

They ran to the dock, where two small boats were tethered to a post. Finn felt a sudden rush of electricity as they left Rowan's cleansed area behind. Ariane jumped into the smaller of the two boats, almost losing her balance when it bobbed up and down in the lake. Steadying herself, she helped the other two in.

'How do we row?' Finn asked, trying to find somewhere to sit in the cramped rowboat, as Ariane cut the rope which bound them to the dock. The oars hung over the sides into the black water, and looked intimidating large and heavy.

Ariane looked at him blankly. 'I thought you'd know how,' she said slowly. There was a loud screeching creak as the heavy front door to the Tower began to swing open.

Rowan looked back and forth at them in disbelief. 'You're joking. Have you ever done anything like this? Ever?' He grabbed the oars and, with a surprising amount of strength for his frail arms, began to row.

The small boat glided through the dark water, slowly at first, then picking up speed.

Finn summoned what remained of his energy and reached out to the remaining rowboat. Cold air flowed from his fingers, making his breath steam. The water around the boat hardened into ice.

'So they can't follow,' he explained to Ariane, who nodded in understanding. The effort made him dizzy all over again. Having no magic was even less pleasant than he remembered.

The dark figures that came out the door stopped short when they saw the frozen boat. Finn could hear their voices echoing over the water, but couldn't make out the words.

Soon, the dock and mages had both disappeared into the dark. The Tower, though, was still visible against the night sky. Finn watched it recede, panic subsiding into a dull, empty ache. Somehow he didn't think he would ever see it again.


	13. Chapter 13

Finn wasn't sure how he had got to his stepsister's house in Orlais. As best he could remember, he had been there only once, to attend his stepsister's wedding to a minor nobleman. The house seemed... twistier than he had remembered.

His mother, clad in a ball gown and an enormous hat made of magic scrolls, was informing him that through some terrible mix-up he was going to have to marry Chantry Sister Estella. She, as his mother, was very upset about this, but in order to avoid embarrassment they would have to soldier on. She knew as a good son he would understand.

Finn considered objecting, but his father was already nodding sadly and ushering him past a crowd of armour-clad Templars to where Estella, portly and middle-aged in an extravagant wedding dress, waited at the end of an aisle.

'Dad,' Finn said, his tongue feeling strangely heavy. 'She has no head.' Blood seeped from the stump of the Chantry Sister's neck, staining her white dress.

'Of course not,' his father answered, looking at him strangely. 'She's dead, after all.' The Templars looked out of their helmets with empty eye sockets.

'Need some air,' Finn explained, feeling nauseous. He stumbled through air that felt like molasses to the door, pushing it open with as much force as he could muster. Outside were the docks of the Circle tower, a breeze blowing through the cold night air. The dingy bobbed in the ink-black water.

Finn turned around. It was the Tower behind him, not his stepsister's mansion. And it was on fire.

'Have to wonder how you didn't notice that.'

Mouse stood beside him, arms crossed, admiring the flames.

'I mean, really,' the demon continued blithely, as the second floor windows exploded outwards in a shower of melted glass and fire. 'It's rather pretty though, don't you think?'

'Stop messing with my dreams.' Finn ordered with as much authority as he could muster. He vaguely knew he should be panicking, but he was actually sort of glad to have the nightmare explained.

Mouse didn't budge. 'I'm not,' he said, indicating the burning tower. 'This is all yours. I'm just visiting.' He held one hand up, admiring the orange light on his fingers. 'Honestly, I was hoping your subconscious symbolism would be a bit more subtle,' he added disapprovingly.

Finn suddenly found he was profoundly embarrassed. This was followed by indignation. If this was his stupid dream, the demon invading it could at least not judge it. 'Aren't you supposed to be a bit less rude? Whole seduction thing and all. I think you're doing it wrong.'

Mouse shrugged noncommittally. 'I was getting ready to go with mounds of flattery, but then I thought, why bother? You'll just be all paranoid and self-depreciating about it, and I like talking to you. This way we can speak honestly.'

'Good,' Finn answered hotly, 'because I'm not going to listen to any of your...'

His voice trailed off as a thought occurred to him. 'Oh, Maker,' he groaned, putting a palm to his forehead. 'This is just another layer of it, isn't it?' The demon looked innocently curious. 'You think I'll like it better if you act like I'm too smart to be fooled by you, so you're being all rude and pretending you're talking straight to me.'

Mouse grinned appreciatively. 'If I didn't like you, I wouldn't be trying so hard.'

Finn frowned. 'Wait, is that supposed to be another layer? Was I supposed to figure that out so I could feel clever about that too?' His head was starting to pound.

'See?' said Mouse, gesturing around them. 'This is fun. Oh, come on,' he said patronizingly, as Finn scowled hideously at him, 'don't tell me you've never wanted some else clever to talk to.'

'Alright, done with the bizarre friendship overture now.' This wasn't even scary, it was just plain weird. Plus, uncomfortably enough, Finn found he was actually sort of enjoying talking to Mouse. 'What is the point of this?'

'Couldn't help but notice that the Free Marches and Amaranthine aren't exactly the same place. Could there be a chance you've been lying to me, Finn?' Mouse looked wounded.

'No,' Finn said decisively. 'We are going to Amaranthine. We're just also going to the Free Marches.'

It was technically true. Amaranthine was the nearest dock either he or Ariane knew of. Assuming there was actually a dock there.

'Dare I ask which region?' Mouse asked with exaggerated interest. 'Starkhaven, perhaps? I hear the leaves are lovely this time of year.'

Finn decided not to bother pretending to have any other, more innocent motive for going to Kirkwall. It was a Templar stronghold. Aside from an unnecessarily elaborate suicide plan, there was no reason for an apostate mage to go within ten miles of the place.

'I do not need your help with the Eluvian.' He was surprised how certain his voice sounded. 'I can do it alone.' It wasn't as if he had a choice. It had to be a mage, and there certainly wasn't anyone else who could do it. And if there was one thing the Tower had made him certain of, it was that the Warden needed to be found.

Mouse looked disappointed. He gazed out across the dark water. It lapped gently against the narrow wooden dock. 'Pity. I'd have thought you'd have translated it correctly by now.'

Finn did his best to ignore the jab. He had translated it all correctly. Well, there was always some guesswork involved with a language as old as this, but all his assumptions had been made with some backing. He couldn't have missed anything that important, could he?

The demon looked pityingly at him. 'You need a demon, Finn,' it explained gently, as if to a child. 'You need someone on the other side to get it working at all. Someone to open the door.'

Not possible. He definitely would have noticed something that major. The demon was just trying to confuse him. That was, after all, what they were known for.

But still... Finn's mind flashed back unbidden to his time with the Warden, almost eight years previous. He had translated a word as 'seals', and assumed it meant that the Lights of Arlathan would be magically disguised from view. The word turned out to have been 'guardians'. This had become apparent when an ancient Elven warrior spirit nearly took his head off. Could he have made a mistake again?

'Flemeth's daughter didn't have a demon,' he said quickly. The Warden's lover had shown no signs of blood magic, and seemed to be working alone. 'If she can manage it, so can I.' That sounded a bit cockier than he had meant, but it was basically true. He thought, anyways.

'She was hardly human, was she?' Mouse said, fairly reasonably. 'And what about that child of hers? Spawn of an archdemon... but nowhere to be seen.'

Finn wanted to ask how Mouse had known about the Warden's child when it had obviously not been common knowledge. He also considered pointing out that even if the child had been waiting on the other side of the mirror, it would have been much too young to perform any kind of magical ritual (assuming it could even stand up). He had an alarming feeling that Mouse would have some all-too-logical response for both of these questions.

Instead, he decided to go with the most glaringly obvious hole in this line of thinking. 'So what? I let you possess me and everything works out? Sorry, but I'm really not interested.'

Mouse snorted. 'No offense meant, but don't you think I'd aim a little higher as far as bodies go?'

The demon had a point there, Finn reflected gloomily. He had always thought talking to a pride demon would at least be good for your self-esteem. Things didn't seem to be going that way.

Mouse rolled his eyes. 'Besides, you'll have somewhere to go. Looking for the Warden.'

'You know where he is?' Finn asked, sounding much more eager than he had meant to. He tried his best to look disinterested.

'I might,' Mouse said evasively. 'Look, I'll find a corpse. Some insane blood mage who would wind up possessed anyways. Something. It won't be your problem.'

Reality came to Finn back in a flood. 'No. No deal. I don't trust you.' It always came back to the possession thing. How had he even gotten into this conversation?

'I'll give you some time,' Mouse suggested, crossing his arms. The dark water behind him bubbled and rolled. 'You take another look at those notes and think it over.' His tone suggested that the decision was already forgone, but for Finn's sake he would be willing to be indulgent. Like a doting parent.

The movement in the water resolved into several vaguely human shapes, thrashing and crawling onto the rocky shore. Darkspawn, Finn realized. He started to yell, but remembered he was still dreaming.

Mouse ignored the grey-skinned monsters loping through the rocks towards them. 'Remember, you'll need someone,' he said, sounding reasonable. A hurlock howled at him and he swatted it like a fly. 'Better the demon you know, right?' The hurlock extended its forked tongue and licked Finn's cheek.

Finn yelped and shoved the darkspawn away from him.

Dog looked back at him with hurt brown eyes. Around him was the back of a transport wagon, piled with bolts of linen and crates. The air was oppressively hot and close. Ariane dozed restlessly across from him.

'Get off,' Finn mumbled, shoving the Mabari away. It whined piteously. Finn's back ached and his legs were stiff, but the narrow cart had no room for him to stretch them.

After escaping the tower, they had walked further than Finn had thought he was capable of to ensure they were out of the mages' territory. Finn had been dead on his feet by the time a merchant caravan had passed, heading north to the towns on the coast. A few coins had convinced one of the merchants to let himself, Ariane, Rowan and Dog ride in the back of his crowded cart.

'Good morning,' Ariane called, stretching her arms over her head. 'Well, afternoon. Hey, something wrong?' she asked, as Finn dove for the papers protruding from her pack.

'No,' said Finn, frantically shuffling the pages. 'Just need to check something. About, uh... something.' Where were the passages about the Eluvian? He had translated most of it... or he thought he had. He couldn't have made a mistake so major as to miss the necessity of a demon, could he?

There was that summary of the Elven leaders, and then a great list of their names and the powers they could invoke. Then the Orlesian scholar had attempted to find parallels between the acts performed by these ancients and modern spells. Interesting, but not demon related.

Then a part he hadn't been able to translate, then something which seemed to be some kind of incantation or verse. Finally, he reached the part he believed to be about the Eluvian. A door through the domain of spirits...

It was 'domain', wasn't it? He knew that the Dalish tradition taught that demons and Fade spirits were one and the same, rather than opposing forces like the Chantry taught. 'Spirits' could easily refer to what humans would think of as a demon. They were, technically spirits, after all.

But what about 'domain'? He had read the word as referring to land or place, and assumed it meant that the Eluvian used the power of the Fade to transport. However, he had no idea if the Elven ancients would have thought of the Fade as belonging to the spirits, or of a realm belonging to anyone. They hadn't been that big on physical ownership.

Could the word be closer to 'will'? A door through the will of spirits...

Uncertainty gripped him. It fit just as well, and matched what he knew of Elven magic. They had never been shy about contacting inhuman forces in any of their stories; why would they be in practice?

'The Templar said goodbye, ' Ariane said conversationally, as Finn skimmed the page looking for a recurrence of the word. Maybe context would help. Ariane yawned again.

'He's gone?' Finn said vaguely. He looked around the stuffy caravan. No Rowan. 'Oh, yeah.' He found he was oddly sad to have the Templar gone. Rowan had made it clear that he planned on returning to the Chantry and reporting as best he could. They must have passed the road to Lothering already. 'You have to start waking me up for these things.'

Ariane shrugged, clearly not sharing his remorse at losing the ornery templar. 'Sorry, you seemed tired. You were talking in your sleep again,' she added, brow knitted with concern.

'Oh.' Hopefully nothing about demons. Or, more embarrassing, about Ariane. 'Bad dreams.'

'About the...' Ariane indicated the direction they had come with her head. Back towards the mage tower. She looked worried now.

Finn shivered slightly at the memory of the Tower. 'About my stepsister's wedding for some reason, actually,' he told her. Technically it was true. 'Which I attended in Orlais when I was fifteen. I have no idea what the bearing on our current situation is. I think my subconscious needs a new hobby.' Hopefully Mouse would hear that.

'You went to Orlais when you were fifteen?' Ariane asked curiously. 'I thought they kept you all locked up in case you exploded or something.'

'Apparently my parents bombarded the Chantry with letters about how not having me there would be an appalling embarrassment and cause some dire political trauma,' he explained. His mother had always been a bit on the dramatic side. She claimed it was her Orlesian heritage. 'Since I wasn't exactly a flight risk, they sent me along with a templar for a chaperone.' One of the few perks of being a hopeless nerd. No one worried you were going to go rogue and blow up a diplomat.

'Sounds like fun,' Ariane said, grinning. 'I'm not sure I can envision a Templar at a party,' she added, clearly thinking of Rowan.

'Actually he had a great time,' said Finn. Personally, he had spent most of the party hiding behind the curtains, but a few glasses of wine had got his Templar guardian right into the spirit of the festivities. 'He got completely blasted and hit on my aunt. Oh, I'm sorry, alright?' he added to Dog, who was still sulking in the corner where Finn had pushed him.

Dog woofed softly, looking pitiful. Finn crawled over around the crates and began to rub the Mabari's head. 'How have you never given him a name?' he asked Ariane, as Dog's ropey tail wagged happily.

'I don't know.' Ariane shrugged. 'It seemed rude. He isn't mine.' Dog's tongue lolled happily from his mouth.

'Should call him Barkspawn.' Finn mused, evading a string of dog drool.

Ariane grinned and rolled her eyes. 'That's just cliché.'

'Or Rex,' Finn continued distractedly, scratching Dog's ears. 'Or... Steve.'

Ariane's grin turned into a look of baffled surprise. 'Steve? '

Finn blushed. 'I have been spelling my name for people for twenty-seven years, alright?' he said, mock-indignantly. 'Far be it from me to inflict more than one syllable on anyone.'

'He's a better warrior than half the hunters I've met.' Ariane crossed her arms seriously. 'I'm not calling him Steve.' She paused for a moment, chewing a strand of her long brown hair. 'Wait, twenty-seven? You mean when we went with the Warden, you were...'

Finn winced. He might have exaggerated his age to the Warden slightly, but he had been worried about being left behind. Seeing an Eluvian had been too good to pass up.

He could point out that technically he wouldn't have been spelling his name for the first few years of his life, since he wouldn't have been able to spell, but Ariane was looking at him suspiciously and he didn't think she'd go for the technicality. Besides, he could feel his face flushing. 'Twenty-four?' he said hopefully.

'We may not have fancy shemlan libraries in the clans, but I can add.' Ariane shook her head disbelievingly, but she was smiling again. 'I knew you were lying.'

'And you were...' Finn refused to believe Ariane could be that much older than he was. Maybe the ancient elves had lived forever, but today they were no longer-lived than humans.

'Twenty-two,' Ariane said imperiously. She arched one eyebrow, obviously trying not to laugh.

Finn nodded solemnly. 'Ah. A vast difference in years. Clearly your superior experience rendered you far more capable of dealing with giant murderous ancient guardians.'

'Oh, please,' said Ariane dismissively, unable to suppress a grin. 'You know it was me that took it down. '

'Of course,' Finn agreed. 'Well. Cousland may have helped. A little.' Specifically the Warden had cut the things massive head off.

Ariane laughed properly at that. 'You might have had a tiny contribution,' she said. 'Barely worth mentioning though.'

'I think my contribution was more in the 'waiting around' and 'being forgotten about' sections of the adventure,' Finn admitted. 'Those are my specialties.' He stopped scratching Dog's head, and the warhound barked loudly in protest.

'Quiet that thing down!' yelled the caravan driver from the other side of the canvas wall. His tone suggested that a few more coins might be necessary before the end of the trip.

Dog whimpered, ears dropping. Finn patted his neck. 'Shh, Steve. It's okay,' he murmured, loud enough for Ariane to hear.

The Dalish woman rolled her eyes and curled her knees up to her chest. 'Wake me up when we're near Amaranthine.'

* * *

Thank-you so much for the reviews and feedback so far! If you can think of anything I can improve, please send me a review or a PM. Also, thank-you for reading!

Twice-a-week updates have been working for me so far (and I hope for anyone reading), but I may have to slow down to one chapter per update to finish editing. I really want to stick to my schedule, but I also want to fix things up before posting them. I don't like posting small updates though, so I'll work on getting things finished :)


	14. Chapter 14

Ariane woke with a start as the cart stopped abruptly. Judging by the stiffness of her back, she must have been asleep a few hours. It was even hotter under the canvas than it had been earlier. It was also beginning to smell distinctly of dog breath.

Dog himself was panting heavily, while Finn was still buried in a mountain of papers. His lips moved silently as he read something written in blotted black ink, and his face was troubled.

The curtain wall at the back of the cart was suddenly pulled back, and afternoon sunlight streamed into the close interior. Ariane squinted in the bright light. Autumn was underway but the air outside was hot and still.

The merchant, a tanned human with a hard-lined face, scowled at them.

'Alright, everyone out,' he said gruffly.

Ariane looked at him in confusion. There was no way they were at Amaranthine yet.

'I thought you were going to the coast,' she said, slowly beginning to gather her things. They had paid the merchant for transport, but she honestly didn't know how steep the fee he had charged had been. She wished she knew a little more about human currency.

'I'm picking up new stock soon.' The merchant scowled first at Ariane, then at Finn, who didn't seem to have noticed the intrusion. 'Don't need to explain about you lot.'

He jerked his head at the mage. Ariane reminded herself to get Finn some normal clothes.

Hoisting her pack onto her shoulders, she swung her legs over the edge of the cart and dropped onto the road. Dog leapt down after her, earning another scowl from the merchant. She surveyed their surroundings. The cart had halted at a crossroad. Wide dirt roads stretched out in four directions, with battered signposts declaring their destinations. A layer of dust had settled over everything in the heat. She could see the rest of the caravan a short distance down the eastern road.

Finn jumped down from the back of the cart, stumbling slightly as he hit the ground. 'Where are we?' he asked, blinking as he looked around.

'Maybe a day south of the sea.' The merchant pointed in another direction. 'Stay on this road, you'll end up in Amaranthine.'

He eyed Finn's robes and staff again. 'Or maybe don't stay on the road.' Ariane was surprised to realize that he actually sounded mildly concerned. Maybe she had paid better than she had thought.

'Thanks.' She nodded at him, then tugged Finn's sleeve. It was a good thing they had slept on the cart; they would be far safer travelling by night. If they started now, they might be able to reach Amaranthine by morning. 'Come on.'

The heat refused to break the next morning, and the air as they entered the outskirts of Amaranthine was oppressively muggy. Dew steamed off the cobbled streets and Ariane felt like she was breathing through a towel. Dog was panting even more heavily as he followed close behind her.

Looking around at the bustling courtyards and mazelike streets, she could barely believe that by human standards the port city was relatively small. How did these people find anything? How did they even hear themselves talk?

'I didn't think there would be so many people,' Finn whispered to her. He looked as uncomfortable as she felt, craning his head around to watch every person who went by and jumping at every merchant who called to them as they passed. His pale hands fidgeted with his too-big clothes, yanking down the hem of his shirt and turning his pockets inside out and back again.

Ariane could identify. In her plain dress and hood she felt practically naked. Naked and uncoordinated. The dress seemed to have belonged to an elf, judging by the narrow cut, but one of mutant height. Every time she tripped on it - which between her own feet and those of the crowd seemed to be every other step - it jerked forward, pulling her hood down around her neck.

The clothes had been obtained outside the city, to both of their resignation. Finn had pointed out that although the troubled politics of the area had resulted in some odd travellers, Dalish warriors in full armour and blood writing were still not a common sight in the Fereldan countryside.

He had been a little less practically inclined when it came to his own clothes. After numerous tirades on the oppressiveness of pants, including a truly impressive analogy comparing trousers to the restrictive regime of the Qunari, he had finally grudgingly agreed that mage robes wouldn't help them in town. Ariane had pilfered some stored clothing from a farmyard shed, told Finn it was paid for to stop him from agonizing over legality, and put together the best civilian disguises she could manage.

They couldn't disguise Dog, though. The Mabari drew some stares from passersby.

Their own clothes were bundled into packs along with her weapons. Vera, which Finn has flatly refused to leave behind, stuck out the pack awkwardly like some sort of bizarre antenna.

All and all, they were not quite as inconspicuous as she might have hoped.

'Towns usually mean people,' she responded, standing on her tiptoes in an attempt to see over the crowd. A hurrying messenger immediately knocked into her, nearly bowling her over.

'Well,' she added with a little less confidence seeing Finn's worried frown, 'or so I've been told.' She craned her neck again in a vain attempt to see where they were. 'Why are you shemlan so ungodly tall?'

'I don't know. Sheer bloody-mindedness, probably.' The lanky mage peered over the crowd, resting one hand on her shoulder for balance. He was so tense that his fingers dug into the rough fabric of her dress. 'There are no signs. Nothing is labelled,' he concluded, sounding appalled. This lack of written clarity seemed to offend him more than the crowd. 'Um... Who are we supposed to ask about ships?'

'I was... sort of hoping you'd know,' Ariane admitted. On the back roads and in the countryside Finn had been panicky and nervous (as well as unnaturally fixated on dirt) but at least she had known what she was doing. She had figured that when they got to town it would be his turn to manage things. 'Didn't you grow up in this city?'

Finn's frown deepened. Without access to proper bathing facilities his hair had started to resemble a red string mop. Stubble had started to come in on his chin too, which looked unnatural on his childish face. He did not look like a reliable authority on navigating cities. 'If by 'grew up' you mean 'grew from being a sort of human grub to being about three feet tall', then yes, but I never really got past the bit where I wasn't allowed to cross the street on my own. I was six,' he explained hastily, seeing the look on her face. 'I never exactly explored the place.'

Ariane sighed. 'I guess we just look, then.' She realized she wasn't even sure how much a boat would normally cost. Maybe they had something they could sell, or she could pick up a mercenary job.

'We could look for water,' Finn suggested helpfully. 'Water is usually a prerequisite for boats, I think.'

The roofs were different colours here, she realized. Maybe she could use them to navigate, like she did with the stars. Squaring her shoulders, Ariane strode forward, eyes on the rooftops. Finn followed agreeably behind.

Within fifteen minutes they were completely lost.

'The walls move', she panted, leaning against the grimy wall of the ally she had inexplicably found herself in. 'That's the only way to explain it. It's all an awful trick to keep elves out of human cities.'

'I don't think,' said Finn thoughtfully, looking around at their gloomy surroundings, 'that I like cities very much.' He nervously toed a broken bottle that lay on the cobbles.

'I'll bet that's why they need the alienages,' Ariane continued, ignoring him. 'All the elves have to stick together, because if they ever separated they would never find each other again.' She started chewing her fingernails. 'Are you absolutely certain there's no secret human trick to this? Some kind of codeword?'

'Listen,' said Finn semi-seriously, 'one of these days there's going to be something heroic that needs doing in a library. And I am going to be so ready. You just wait.' He absently batted her hand away from her mouth. 'When some diabolical book-cataloguing darkspawn makes its bid for tyranny, I am going to be all over it.' He looked around at the alley again. 'You know, in all fairness to the city, I'm not sure that this is the best bit.'

'Too late', Ariane said, crossing her arms mock-imperiously. 'You've had your chance to impress me, town. On behalf of the - clan, I officially brand you confusing and ugly. And smelly.' The smoke from various chimneys had been making her eyes water and they had started to sting.

Finn nodded sagely. 'Your charms are woefully lacking. And those I can find are kind of unhygienic,' he added, toeing the jagged bottle again. Dog sniffed the broken glass and sneezed disapprovingly.

Ariane giggled, then hiccupped loudly. Finn's round hazel eyes widened in alarm.

'Oh, come on-' she started, and then hiccupped again, which made her giggle harder. Theoretically, she was on a heroic mission, defending the heritage of her people. And here she was laughing and hiccupping, completely lost in an alley.

'We are the worst heroes', she told Finn by way of explanation, still giggling and wiping her eyes.

'As the world is determined to remind us', he agreed, grinning. He started rummaging around in his pack. 'I wish the Seekers and Templars could see this. Then we could all just agree that we're obviously harmless and call it a day.' He proffered a skin of water to her.

She grabbed it and took a long drink. The warm water cleared the dust out of her mouth, and seemed to clear her head a little too.

She closed the container back up and looked around. 'So, first of all. Where are we?'

'Well,' said Finn, 'evidence would suggest that we are in a scary back alley full of rubbish. Further research concludes,' he continued, leaning out into the street and looking up and down at the darkened windows, 'that we have discovered the location of the dodgy side of town. Although I am the first to admit that my breadth of knowledge on the subject is severely limited.'

'Alright.' Ariane walked out into the street. Dog followed at her heels. There were noticeably fewer people in this region of Amarathine, and those who passed didn't even give her the curious looks she had received in the market. 'Let's think about this logically.'

Shifting her balance from foot to foot, she realized that the cobbles of the street sloped gently downwards. Surely the water would be downhill from the town.

'I think it might be this way,' she said, pointing. She grabbed Finn's loose sleeve and pulled him down the street, stopping every few meters to reassess which way the ground sloped.

They passed houses made of chipped stone and weathered boards, open shops with barkers calling outside the doors and closed ones with boarded up windows. Ariane kept her eyes in front of her and willed herself to be less nervous.

It didn't work. Amaranthine wasn't known for being dangerous, but with the current state of the world no place seemed safe. Rogue mages and Templars were at each other's throats, and neither seemed to care particularly who was caught in the crossfire. She would be glad to see the place behind them.

'How much money do we have anyways?' Finn asked, sounding worried again. 'Do we even have enough for a boat? What qualifies as a lot?' Money was another area neither of them could claim expertise in. The odd collection of coins they had unearthed in Finn's things seemed like a lot, but he was the first to admit he had gathered them for variety, not for value.

Ariane winced. 'Maybe we could not talk loudly about the contents of our purses?' she muttered to him, noticing the way the eyes of a man passing strayed to her pack. Or maybe he was looking at her chest. She wasn't sure which thought was less pleasant.

'Sorry,' Finn answered. He fell silent. She looked back, vaguely meaning to apologize for being so harsh. Lack of sleep was making her testy.

A heartbeat later, she shoved him behind a doorframe, clamping one hand over his mouth, heart pounding.

'Mmph?' said Finn by way of objection, looking at her blankly over her fingers.

'Templars', she whispered back. His eyes went huge and he leaned his head out to try to look down the street.

She pushed him back against the wall, then poked her head out herself.

There were only two of them, she realized, a woman and a man, the sunlight glinting on their armour. She had seen the shields and had assumed it would be an army. These two looked somewhat bedraggled as well. Their armour was polished but dinted in several places, and the purple fabric of their uniforms was faded and patched.

Their swords, however, looked to be in perfect working order. She fingered the knife in her sleeve, the only weapon she had managed to hide in these stupid clothes. 'If there's a fight,' she whispered, trying to keep her voice even, 'don't use magic. That will make it worse. Run and we'll find each other at the docks.' He nodded, face white.

Trying to stay as hidden as possible, Ariane sized up the Templars again. She tried and failed to dismiss the little voice in her head which pointed out that her chances against two fully-armed and armoured fighters while wearing a too-big dress and wielding a dagger were more laughable than her chances of finding the docks if they were separated. The armour would slow them down. It had to.

As she studied their armaments, Ariane noticed that the pair wasn't moving their way, as she had originally thought.

In fact, they weren't even looking in the same direction. The woman appeared to be deep in conversation with a grimy-looking shopkeeper standing in front of a basket of tomatoes. The man had his arms crossed and was scowling at the unfortunate merchant, who was fidgeting and babbling.

Ariane strained to make out the words.

'...know you saw something,' the woman was saying. Her voice was cold. 'I suggest you tell us.'

'I swear, I don't know anything about any mage!' the merchant said, his panicky voice shrill. Ariane felt Finn flinch beside her. She silently cursed herself for having gotten so complacent. Obviously the blood dolls hadn't thrown off the Seekers for long.

Finn's face was grey; Dog's fur was standing up and he was growling softly.

The lady Templar sighed and leaned back, one armoured hip jutting out. 'I know what you're thinking. How dangerous could they really be?' She examined her gauntlet, holding it up as though checking her manicure. 'Have you ever seen what a mage can do to an ordinary house? I have.'

The merchant deflated visibly. His shoulders slumped and his eyes dropped to the ground. 'She's my wife,' he said pleadingly.

Relief flooded Ariane. Her arms relaxed slightly. A different mage.

'All the more reason that you need to protect your children', said the Templar flatly. Her partner hefted his battered shield. Templars operating with the Seekers would be better equipped, Ariane realized. These two probably weren't even with the Order formally at all. Rowan had said that most weren't anymore.

'Let's get out of here', Ariane whispered. Dog whined in agreement.

Ariane slowly started moving, trying to look casual. Her back prickled as she walked as calmly as she could up the street. She willed herself not to turn around.

They rounded a corner and she realized she'd been holding her breath. She exhaled in a rush.

'You know what's strange,' said Finn slowly. His face was still white. 'When I saw them, my first thought was, thank the Maker. Now someone will help us find the dock.' He ran a hand slowly through his hair. 'I keep forgetting that they aren't here to take care of us anymore.'

Ariane remembered the petrified look on the merchant's face. Then the iron doors of the Seekers' chambers. 'D'you know, I think I may be able to remember for both of us,' she said dryly.

Finn chewed his lip and didn't answer.

'It's not strange', Ariane said in a gentler voice, feeling a pang of sympathy. It was easy for her to react - Templars had only ever looked like enemies to her.

'We just have to remember that we're normal people,' she said, sounding far surer than she felt. 'Just some travellers hoping to catch a boat. Panicking will just draw attention.' He smiled disbelievingly at her faux confidence, but some colour was coming back into his face.

Just the same, she picked up her pace as they kept walking.


	15. Chapter 15

Ariane was still not enthused to be in a town, but this part at least seemed less overtly dangerous. The Templars and the unfortunate merchant disappeared behind them as they walked, and the streets became wider and more crowded. The smell of salt water and fish in the hot sun filled her nose.

Finally they reached the wooden pier. It stretched out over shining blue water, anchored docks bobbing up and down on the waves. The cobbles were slick with seawater, and gulls careened overhead, squawking as if mortally offended.

After her initial relief though, she didn't feel much more confident than she had in the alley. If anything, things were even more crowded and confusing here. Why couldn't there be some kind of registration or front desk or something? How did anyone know which ships were going where?

'Excuse me,' she asked a burly sailor as confidently as she could. 'I'm looking for-'

'Move it, knife-ears,' the man barked, nearly knocking her over as he hoisted a crate from a platform being used as a crude lift.

Ariane's hand went instinctively to her hip as she regained her balance. No sword there. Being a civilian was turning out to be alarmingly difficult.

The sailor's companion noticed her look of dismay and took pity on her. 'Where you headed, girl?' he asked. 'Not many ships in yet. Most will be coming when the tide comes in.' Ariane suddenly noticed the dark watermarks on the tide wall, signifying how high the water would be that afternoon.

'I'm trying to find passage to the Free Marches,' she said, trying to sound casual. 'I'm... not really sure how,' she admitted, although she was fairly sure anyone would have figured that out by now.

'Free Marches, huh?' The sailor's brow knitted in thought. 'Most folks want to get away from there, not towards.' He raised an eyebrow. Ariane prayed he wouldn't ask why they were the exception.

'There's a ship heading towards Kirkwall in a few days,' he said finally. 'The Lady's Luck, she's called. Carrying a heavy cargo, but you might be able to convince her to take passengers.'

A few days? Ariane had barely been in Amaranthine a few hours and she was already exhausted.

'When exactly does it sail?' she asked, trying not to sound panicky. Dog licked her hand, a gesture he reserved for when he wanted to reassure her. Obviously she wasn't fooling him.

'You'd have to ask her captain,' the sailor said. He eyed Dog. 'Might have to pay a bit extra for your friend there. Is that a real Mabari?'

Ariane nodded and he whistled, impressed. 'I heard you Fereldan were mad for dogs, but didn't think it was true.'

Dog growled in indignation, and Ariane quieted him with a pat on the head. 'Thanks,' she said to the sailor, who answered with a nod and started after his companion.

She turned back to Finn. 'Alright. So we have to find the ship's captain, and then somehow survive for three days in this blasted place. Any ideas?'

'Why d'you think a cargo ship would be going to Kirkwall?' Finn mused. 'I expected we'd have to go to another Free City and go on foot. I didn't think much of anyone would be going there. Do you think they're carrying something dodgy?'

'As long as they let us travel, I don't care.' Smugglers or not, the Lady's Luck sounded like their best bet by far. Ariane surveyed the noisy docks. 'I suppose we should get out of the city. We can camp in the woods and head back in when the ship is loading.' Getting back outside civilization would be a relief. She had had enough of being civilized for the day.

'Or we could find an inn,' Finn said hopefully. 'And sleep in real beds. Not that I have anything against the woods,' he added hastily, seeing her expression of horror. 'Except maybe the dirt and the spiders. But to be honest, the inns probably have those too.'

She felt a bit guilty at that. 'Maybe we could leave and figure out what we're doing outside the city? And then come back in tomorrow.' She was dubious about their chances of convincing any innkeeper to let them stay, but Finn clearly needed some time indoors.

Feeling slightly defeated, Ariane started to trudge back up the sloped street. Dog followed, sniffing excitedly at the corners of buildings. At least someone was enjoying Amaranthine.

Maybe if she could smell everything that had gone on in these streets she'd be interested too. The place seemed like it would only get more complex after dark. She resolved to be out of the city boundaries as quickly as possible.

She sighed, breathing in the muggy air. The humidity was making her hair frizz. She had braided the front of it in a vague attempt to keep it under control, but pieces were sticking out of the top and odd angles. Her stupid dress was beginning to itch, too. She had been worried that people would stare at her, but the humans that passed seemed to look straight through her, unless it was to glare when she didn't automatically step out of their way. She felt like a ghost. No wonder city elves preferred to live in alienages. At least there they would be seen.

'Wait a minute.'

Emerging from her thoughts, Ariane turned to see that Finn had ground to a halt several meters back. He was frowning intently at a shopfront. It looked slightly less battered than some of the rest, but there didn't seem to be anything remarkable about it. The door was open, and behind the counter a haggard looking merchant held up his hands in defense, while several irate shoppers jabbered at him.

'What's wrong?' she asked, puzzled. Dog sat on the pavement, looking confused. She didn't think there was anything they needed. The provisions they had taken from the Tower were holding up fairly well, and besides, there had to be less crowded shops around. They were trying to avoid attention, not attract it.

Finn pointed to a tiny, formidable-looking old woman in a plain dress and bonnet standing by the door. Her arms were crossed and her scowl looked carved from stone. 'I think that might be my parent's housekeeper.'

'Seriously?' Ariane looked dubiously at the woman. It seemed unlikely that not only was this someone Finn knew, but someone he still recognized. She hoped this wasn't just wishful thinking. 'Are you sure?'

Finn chewed his lip. 'She looks exactly like her. Exactly like she did when I was little, too. I don't think she ages.'

He took a few steps towards the shop, then looked back at Ariane. She shrugged. Who knew what the etiquette here was?

After a few moments, Finn seemed to work up the courage to move. He approached the woman nervously. Airna hung back, while Dog panted enthusiastically by her knees.

'Sorry... Marsha?' Finn asked timidly. The woman looked up, scowl still in place. Ariane prepared herself for a hasty escape. 'Do you know Cyrus and Eloise Aldebrant?' he asked hopefully.

Marsha stayed stock-still, arms still folded imperiously over her bony chest. 'Do I know you?' she asked. Her voice was cool, but Ariane thought she saw a flicker of recognition in the older woman's sharp dark eyes.

'Yes,' said Finn, sounding completely unsure himself. 'No. Sort of. I'm... Eloise's son.' This last was in an undertone. His agitation garnered glances from a few passersby. Ariane did her best to glare at them, but was roundly ignored. Human cities were turning out to be ruinous on the self-esteem.

Marsha took studied Finn carefully. Ariane could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She should have stopped him. Even if this woman was someone Finn had known, there was no guarantee that she wouldn't throw him to the Templars now. Nothing was certain.

Finally, slowly, Marsha's stony face cracked into a small smile. 'You grew.'

Finn smiled back weakly. 'A bit.'

A knock-kneed elf girl of about sixteen in servant's garb stumbled out of the throng of people inside the store and tripped over to Marsha's side. 'Hurry up, girl,' the older woman barked, impassive efficiency returning.

The girl bobbed her head nervously. Her wide green eyes strayed over Finn, then looked, baffled, at Ariane. Her face begged for an explanation. Ariane shrugged slightly, helplessly.

Marsha waved a careless hand at Finn, who was looking as awkward as Ariane felt. 'This is Etienne. Lady Aldebrant's son from her first marriage. And his...' She frowned as she considered Ariane.

'Servant,' she eventually decided. Ariane rolled her eyes inwardly. She was getting extremely sick of being anyone's servant, real or not. She couldn't wait to get back to her clan and direct some lost shemlan away from the Dalish grounds. Being the suspicious one was a lot more satisfying than being the interloper.

The girl still looked confused, but she bobbed an ungainly curtsey. 'Messere.' Dog thrust his nose into her hand, almost knocking her over. She eyed him nervously.

'Hi,' Finn answered, still looking bewildered.

The puzzled look left the servant's face as she remembered her task. 'He says... there is no wine, ma'am,' she told Marsha nervously. 'The ship has not yet arrived.'

'Maker's breath,' the housekeeper swore. 'It's a week late. Fighting's playing havoc with the trade routes,' she added by way of explanation to Finn and Ariane. 'I can't get half of my shopping done. Come on then,' she said, starting up the street. The elven servant trailed her, obviously trying to stare at the Mabari without being noticed.

'I'm sure your mother will be happy to hear you've arrived,' Marsha said, although she didn't sound enthusiastic.

Ariane followed silently, trying to keep the short woman in her view as they passed through the crowd. Her instincts told her to remain alert, but she was too busy wondering what would happen if they truly met Finn's family. She was certain they would want him to stay – danger or no, they were his parents. They clearly loved him, mage or not.

Or they had seven years ago, anyways. Humans were so strange when it came to magic. The power mages wielded made her nervous, but there was no questioning that if someone was born with magic, it was the way they were meant to be. There was nothing unnatural there. Surely these humans would see that.

The idea of being able to leave Finn somewhere safe should have made her feel relieved, but instead she found she was strangely apprehensive. Ever since the Keeper had been taken by the tempalrs, leaving his undertrained First in charge of the clan, she had been feeling more and more powerless in the wake of the unrest sweeping Thedas. The last time she could remember being so unsure was when the Blight had come, and the Warden had saved them – saved everything. The idea of finding him made her feel that at last she was doing something worthwhile, instead of just burying her head in the sand.

She wouldn't ask Finn to give up a chance to be with his family – that was what she had wanted for him in the first place. But she was just as certain that she couldn't find the Warden alone.

She would still have the notes, though – he had promised them to her, and she wanted to bring them to her clan. Maybe the new Keeper could help her decipher them, and she could try again, with her own people this time. It would be good to be home, but she wasn't sure that anyone who hadn't met the Warden would understand.

She would miss Finn, though. Chances were good that if they parted she wouldn't see him again. The thought hurt. More than she was willing to admit.

Dog yanked at her skirt, pulling her out of the way of the wall she had been about to walk into. Her mind snapped back to the situation at hand.

She leaned over to Finn. He looked oddly troubled for someone about to go home. He was playing with a loose thread from his sleeve again, winding it around and around the end of his finger until it turned white.

'So. Etienne?' she asked, in an undertone. She couldn't say with certainty that she remembered Finn's full name, but she didn't think that had been part of it.

'My half-brother,' he muttered back. 'My mum was married once before, in Orlais. He still lives there.'

Ariane nodded slowly. 'And it's better for you to be that son than this one.' Marsha had clearly known who Finn really was – she must not want the servant girl spreading the story around.

'Do I have to be your servant, though?' she mused. 'Servant is so boring. Can't I be your business contact or elven mistress or something? You can be my lapdog,' she added to Dog. The giant Mabari woofed happily at the prospect.

'He's also about fifteen years older than me,' said Finn, sounding dubious. 'And married, and hates Fereldan. No one is going to believe this.' He started chewing his lip again.

Ariane suspected that Finn's resemblance, or lack thereof, to Etienne was not the real issue.

'They're going to want to see you,' she said, doing her best to sound reassuring. And I'm going to miss you, she added silently. There was no need to make things any more difficult, though.

'They have very little choice in the matter,' Finn answered, sounding falsely bright. 'Maker, this is going to be awkward. What would you say to your father if you hadn't seen him in twelve years?'

'First I'd probably ask how he came back to life,' said Ariane, in a stab at humour. 'It would be a very useful trick.'

'Oh.' Finn turned bright red. 'Shit. Sorry. I...' He paused, searching for something to say. 'Sorry,' he repeated finally.

Ariane winced. She had forgotten how nervous humans were about death. Life in the clans was dangerous, so the Dalish learned early to accept it as a possibility. 'No, it's alright,' she said, meaning it. 'It was a long time ago.'

Finn still looked dejected, so she changed the subject. 'What are your parents like? I don't want to make an idiot of myself meeting them.' Not that anything would change her chances of doing that. In the event they let her in the house, what would she even say? Hello, I'm the heavily armed, currently unwashed elf woman who convinced your beloved son to start life as a fugitive? That would go over well.

'Nice, really,' said Finn, brightening a bit. 'A bit intense,' he added as an afterthought.

At least now she knew where he got it from. 'Your mother's Orlesian?' she ventured.

'Yeah. She was a lady. Well, the way their nobility works, everyone's a lady or a lord, there aren't any ranks in between, aside from the Empress, obviously...' Ariane sensed him launching into a lengthy explanation and prepared to cut him off.

'She was a minor lady,' he concluded hastily, before she could speak. 'She met my dad after her first husband died. The war was still on, then. He was in the Fereldan army.' His words had the practiced sound of a story that had been told a hundred times before.

'That's sort of romantic.' Ariane didn't know a lot about human politics, but she knew that Fereldan and Orlais had a long, complicated, and violent history. A marriage after the war couldn't have been popular with either side.

'My mother thinks so too. Be prepared to hear about it at great length.'

Ariane smiled. 'Any other family I should be ready for?'

'No. Two half-siblings, on my mum's side, but they both live in Orlais.' He shrugged. 'My parents were older than most when they were married. I don't think they thought they'd have any children at all.' Ariane felt herself starting to understand why Finn had maintained such heavy contact with his parents. Letting a child go to the tower would be hard for anyone; doing so when your only other children were grown and gone would be even harder.

'What about you?' he asked, looking curious. 'I guess you have loads of family.'

'Yes, it gets hard to keep track who's related to you in the clans.' Ariane realized she hadn't spoken to him before about her family much. She usually held them in her mind, a private reminder that at the end of this weird journey she would always have something to return to. Suddenly, she had an urge to share them with him. It seemed like talking about them would make them feel closer.

'I think I'm related to half of them by blood, and the rest through bonding,' she explained. 'The clan is interconnected that the only way you can be sure someone's not related to you is if they came from a city.' Like Banic. He had arrived as a child with his mother, and the clan had accepted them.

'But honestly,' she continued, 'it's all like family. When my father died, my mother was so upset. I didn't think…'

Dog growled softly at her side, and she realized that they were closer to Marsha than she had realized. The housekeeper gave no indication that she had overheard anything, but all the same, Ariane didn't want to continue. She mouthed 'later', to Finn, and retreated into silence.


	16. Chapter 16

Seeing his parents' house, Finn felt as if a scene from a dream had been incongruently dropped into reality. The large, slightly rambling two-story building _looked_ real. It was nestled in among the other houses which were too modest to be considered proper manors but too large to be mixed with the houses in the market. However, the place had an odd feel to it – both familiar and at the same time altogether strange. Like something from a drawing seen in real life.

Marsha, with apologies, brought them in through the servant's entrance – she claimed she needed to drop off what items she had been able to purchase in the pantry. She delicately suggested that perhaps Ariane's pack, their weapons, and Dog could remain in the basement with her and the elf maid (she gave her name, but so quietly as to be incoherent) while Finn and Ariane headed upstairs. After a lengthy debate, Ariane finally conceded to leave her swords, but refused to let Dog out of her sight.

As Marsha led them purposefully down a narrow corridor, Finn tried to run over possible greetings in his head. Unfortunately, his mind had gone completely blank. Bits of inspiring battlefield speeches from history books kept sneaking into his head, most of them in other languages and all of them completely inappropriate for saying to one's parents. Ariane seemed lost in thought as well.

Marsha pushed open a wooden door, which turned out to lead to the kitchen. A narrow staircase filled one side of the room, leading up to the house's main floor.

The servant girl was peeling a large stack of potatoes while seated at a rough wooden table. An elf man Finn didn't recognize was standing by the wood-burning stove, an expression of rapt concentration on his horsey face.

'Lucain, this is Etienne,' Marsha said to the cook authoritatively.

Finn waved half-heartedly at the man's back.

'No, it ain't,' said Lucain dismissively, without looking up.

'He and his servant will be visiting for some time,' the housekeeper continued, as if Lucain hadn't spoken. 'I am going to inform Madam Aldebrant they have arrived.'

'Will not-Etienne and his Dalish warrior servant be needing supper as well?' the cook asked dubiously. Ariane shifted apprehensively beside Finn, adjusting her ill-fitting servant's clothes.

'Yes,' said Marsha, with a regal glare. 'As will their pet.' Dog panted appreciatively.

'Fantastic,' Lucain grunted, turning to eye the warhound. His apron was spattered with food, and his face was flushed from the heat of the stove. 'It can eat Bibi.'

'Maker, she's still alive?' Finn said in shock. His mother had owned Bibi, a fluffy white terror of a lapdog, since before he could remember. The dog growled and bit anyone it didn't know, and most of those it did. He had had recurring nightmares about being trapped in a room with her when he was five. It hadn't even occurred to him that Bibi could still be in existence.

The cook looked him over properly for the first time. 'She is powered by hellfire and the bad breath of archdemons. She will never die.'

'Lucain was hired to replace your mother's old chef,' Marsha said, gritting her teeth. 'He was the only candidate with adequate qualifications,' she added. Her tone made it clear that the hiring had not been her decision. She gestured to the staircase. 'You may wait upstairs while I speak to Eloise. Your dog would prefer perhaps to wait down here.' Dog looked piteously up at Finn, who shrugged helplessly.

Lucain saluted with his free hand, stirring a pot with another. 'Good luck with whatever you're doing, not-Etienne,' he called.

'Thanks.' Finn started up the stairs, followed by Ariane. Dog settled into the corner of the kitchen, watching them go up the stairs with liquid brown eyes. Finn's feet felt oddly heavy.

Marsha guided them through the gleaming front hall (his mother's fastidiousness had evidently not abated) into the sitting room. The day was still hot and it was close inside, but the soft lighting and wide windows made the room seem more open. The walls were painted a soft green, instead of the amber Finn remembered, and the heavy velvet drapes he remembered hiding behind had been replaced with light, billowing white curtains.

The fireplace was the same, though, and it smelled the same, a combination of hardwood, soap, and incense. It was painfully familiar, all except for him. He felt like an intruder in his own memories.

He realized he had been staring, and Ariane was looking at him with mild concern. 'Everything's a bit lower down than I remembered,' he commented, in an effort to reassure her. It was true, too. He hadn't even really known the mantle had a top when he was six.

'Florian?' a small, accented voice asked from behind him. 'Canard? Is that really you?'

Like the furniture, Finn's mother seemed to have shrunk. The petite, silver-haired woman in the doorway was immaculately dressed, without a hair in place, but she looked so old. His mother in his memory had never changed. Now she was tiny and frail, her pale skin soft and papery.

Finn was relieved that she sounded the same, and even being called 'Ducky' was comforting. It helped him reconcile the woman in his mind with the one in front of him.

'Mum?' he said tentatively. She looked back silently, her wide blue eyes rimmed in dark makeup. 'Listen,' he said in a rush, 'I know this is a bit unexpected, but…'

'Oh, Canard!' His mother seized his hand in a burst of speed and gripped it like a vise, letting loose with a stream of rapid-fire Orlesian. 'Papa and I were so worried! You stopped writing, and those horrible men said we were not to send you anything. As if they have any idea!' She snorted derisively. 'None of them have children, do they? Are you alright? The stories you hear, you have no idea… You've gotten so tall! And handsome, too. Just like your father. Where is he? Marsha? Where is my husband?' This last was in the common tongue of Fereldan, and directed at the housekeeper.

'Here, Eloise.' His father was easily a head taller than his mother, with a straight-backed military posture that years of peace and the addition of an extra forty pounds had done nothing to stoop. He looked down at his wife, then over at his son.

'Florian,' he said, looking baffled. Finn nodded in confirmation, before realizing it wasn't a question.

Cyrus halted again. 'How are things, then?' he said, finally. He didn't smile, but his eyes crinkled in the way they did when he was pleased and couldn't quite disguise it.

Finn's knees felt slightly weak with relief. 'Good. Brilliant.' Not entirely true, but the response was automatic.

'Um.' He suddenly became aware again of Ariane, who had gone stock-still and silent, as if trying to camouflage herself to escape notice. His mother was eyeballing his friend with an expression of confused determination, as if a giant Anderfel squid had appeared in her living room but she didn't want to make a fuss by pointing it out. 'This is my friend, Ariane. Ariane, these are my parents.'

'How do you do?' Eloise said faintly, extending one powdered hand to Ariane while keeping the other clamped on Finn's wrist protectively. Apparently the incongruity of her guest was not going to excuse poor manners.

'Hello,' Ariane said, awkwardly taking the older woman's hand. 'Your house is lovely,' she offered, looking around. His mother stared at Ariane's dirty fingernails disapprovingly.

'Ariane saved me,' Finn told her in quiet Orlesian.

His mother weighed this for a moment. Finally she turned back to Ariane, smile wider and more sincere. 'You must call me Eloise, dear.' Ariane smiled nervously back.

Eloise suddenly noticed the mud tracks that they had left on the carpet. 'Oh, you are all dirty!' she cried, clapping one hand to her chest in dramatic shock. 'Go wash for dinner.' She glanced back at Finn worriedly. 'I told Lucain to make that fish with peppers, but I know those make you sneeze. Shall I ask him for something else?'

She was assuming that they would stay. She didn't want them to leave. Finn was so relieved that decided not to mention that peppers hadn't made him sneeze since he was seven.

'Thanks Mum,' he said gently, disentangling his arm from hers. 'I can handle the peppers.'

'I would have chosen a different menu,' his mother continued, seeming not to have heard, 'but I didn't think... I didn't know if you were...' Her voice trailed off.

To Finn's horror, tears began to leak from her eyes, drawing wet trails in the powder on her cheeks. He tried desperately to think of something to say, but his mind was blank.

'I'll show you upstairs, then,' his father interjected, extending one broad hand to Ariane. He patted his wife on the shoulder comfortingly with the other.

Ariane took his hand. 'Thank you so much.' Finn's father led her out into the hall, as his mother flung her thin arms around him.

Finn hugged her back as she sobbed into his stolen shirt. He had no idea what to say.

'It's okay,' he whispered, in the same soothing voice he had used on the cat in the Circle Tower when it was frightened by a miscast spell. 'It's okay.'

'No letters and no news,' she sobbed, accent thicker in her distress. 'And then we heard about the Circle, they said they were all rebels and the Templars would kill them...' She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and looked up at Finn with big smudgy eyes. 'But I never believed it. I kept writing. And here you are.'

Finn opened his mouth, not sure which of the thoughts running through his head was going to come out. That he hadn't known how bad things had really become, that he had kept writing too. That although he wanted nothing more than to stay here and be safe with his family, he knew that if there was any chance that the Warden could be found, that things could be fixed, he had to try.

His mother hugged him again, even more tightly. 'My baby,' she whispered.

Everything he wished he could say was stuck in his throat. So instead, he just hugged her back.

* * *

Apologies for the short chapter! This was one of the sections that got hit the hardest when I was editing, so the chapter lengths are all a bit wonky now. I'll try to even out the future ones.


	17. Chapter 17

Finn's room was completely untouched, down to the stuffed bear balanced on the top of the wooden dresser. The familiarity was both comforting and slightly eerie, as if it were a museum dedicated to his childhood. The dark-blue paint on the walls was bright and fresh, clearly repainted since he had been taken to the Circle, and the dark wooden furnishings were polished and well-cared for. The toys and the childish decorating made him feel like a real person in a doll's house.

He was able to borrow some clothes – the real Etienne, although he had not visited in some time (due, his mother hastily informed him, to the 'dreadful' girl he had married against Eloise's advice), had left some clothing which fit Finn well enough. He had extracted his dirty robes from the pack, washed them as thoroughly as he could in the basin in the bathroom (a spell would have done it better, but he didn't want to risk using magic in his parents' home), and stashed them in his closet, along with his staff Vera. He didn't think anyone would really inform on him to the Templars, but there was no point taking unnecessary risks.

His mother had insisted that he stay in his old room, and placed Ariane in the guest room down the hall. Finn had braced himself to tell her that he might not be able to stay long, but her teary enthusiasm and his father's quiet pleasure had stopped him.

Instead, he had spent some time obsessively organizing everything in their pack, and then gone to check on Dog. On his way downstairs he had encountered Bibi, clad in a pink sweater and growling ferociously. Everyone else might act like he had never left, but the ancient, balding dog seemed determined to remind him that he didn't belong here anymore.

Dog, on the other hand, was having no trouble fitting in. In the space of a few hours he had somehow endeared himself to both the cook and the servant girl, and was gnawing happily on a beef bone when Finn came downstairs. He suspiciously sniffed Finn's shoes where Bibi had been snapping, but soon forgave him when Finn scratched him behind the ears.

Finn knew he would need to talk to his parents about his plans eventually. He was sure though that there was no harm in putting it off until after dinner. Or maybe until the next morning.

He took one last look around the immaculately preserved bedroom and headed down the hall to look for Ariane. Maybe she would have some idea of how to bring the subject up without hurting them.

He knocked lightly on the heavy wooden door. 'Ariane? Are you...'

With a creak the door swung open, and Ariane poked her head out. Her long brown hair had been piled on top of her head, and instead of the too-long servant's dress she was wearing an also-too-long dress of green silk. Even Finn could tell that the dress didn't match the styles he'd seen on the women in the streets of Amaranthine, but it was still softer than anything he'd ever seen her wear, and the colour matched her slanting eyes.

'Don't say it,' she warned, looking profoundly embarrassed. She tried to smooth out the slightly wrinkled fabric of the skirt. 'I look ridiculous.'

Ridiculous wasn't quite the adjective that came to Finn's mind, but he decided to keep that to himself.

'Your mother wanted to try some of her old dresses on me,' she explained.

Something about the dress having once belonged to his mother broke the effect it had on his ability to speak. 'Sorry,' he apologized. Ariane was not a believer in impractical clothing. 'I think she gets a bit bored.'

Ariane shrugged. 'She seems sweet. I can't imagine anyone in the clans being this nice to someone they didn't know.' Her voice was slightly wistful. 'How's Dog?'

'In love with the cook. It's going to be hard to get him to leave that kitchen.'

Ariane smiled, but her eyes looked troubled. 'Maybe he won't have to.'

What? Beef bones or no, Dog would never consent to being left behind. Unless she meant to leave both of them behind.

'Somehow I don't think Bibi would go for that,' he joked, trying to cover his confusion. He knew he wasn't much of an adventurer, but he had thought that Ariane needed him to find the Warden. Although, now that they had the notes, he supposed any mage could probably work from what he'd written. And another mage would be far more useful. Maybe he really wasn't necessary anymore.

'I met her,' Ariane said, shuddering theatrically. 'She reminded me of some wolves I once found.'

Dinner was a combination of excruciatingly awkward and strangely comforting. His mother seemed to have forgotten her earlier tears entirely, and spend at least half an hour filling him in on the exploits of his half-brother's wife, who by all accounts was a scheming villain on the level of the teryn who had betrayed the old king. Finn nodded sympathetically when he felt he was supposed to, feeling slightly sorry for the poor woman in question (who had probably done nothing worse than fail to notice his mother's new decorating). His father made uncomfortable but polite conversation with Ariane. After realizing that they had absolutely nothing in common, they embarked on an impressively in-depth analysis of why the weather was so warm for this time of year.

Finn planned on avoiding the subject of how long he would be staying at all costs. He said nothing when his mother remarked on how lucky it was that his room was still in order, and nothing again when she suggested that they try to find him some new clothing over the next few weeks instead of Etienne's castoffs.

The truth was, he no longer had any idea what he was going to do. The idea of leaving when his parents had been so relieved to see him save sent him into a spiral of guilt. Going to Kirkwall, on the other hand, had become the only thing in his mind which stopped him from feeling completely helpless. He had been feeling helpless for long enough.

It seemed like Ariane had other plans, though. Otherwise, wouldn't she have said something?

Most of all, he remembered the Templars they had seen in the street, threatening that frightened man for the whereabouts of his mage wife. Amaranthine might not be completely under Templar control for now, but that could change any day. Or the mages could make a bid for the city – Finn doubted he had endeared himself to them at the Circle Tower.

Worst of all, the Seekers were still out there somewhere, and his trick with the blood dolls was bound to wear off eventually. They would return, probably more convinced than ever he was a blood mage. The idea of being in the wilderness alone terrified Finn, but the idea of his parents ending up in a Seeker interrogation room was worse. Whether he went to Kirkwall or not, he couldn't stay for long.

The trouble would be explaining that to his mother.

Finally, when the plates had been cleared away and his mother was discussing how pleased his half-sister would be to see him when she next visited, he took a stab at putting it into words.

'Thing is, Mum, I'm not totally sure I'll be able to stay here all that long.'

His mother stared at him blankly. 'What? Why not?'

'Well.' Whatever he had been planning to say had immediately left his head. He searched for a reason that wouldn't panic her and came up with nothing. 'It's not exactly safe, having me here.'

His father was looking at him seriously, face stoic but eyes distressed. Ariane was politely staring at the ceiling.

His mother snorted derisively. 'I don't care what the neighbors think. You're our son, and I'm not letting you leave.'

Finn was about to point out that the neighbors weren't what he was worried about, but her eyes were becoming dangerously shiny again. She flung her arm dramatically towards the window, gesturing at the quiet street outside. 'It's dangerous out there!'

'I know that!' Finn said, louder than he'd meant to. His mother's black-rimmed eyes widened in hurt confusion.

He lowered his voice. 'Trust me, I really, really know that. That's the whole point. I don't want any of that,' he indicated the window in a mirror of his mother's gesture, 'coming here.'

'They'll leave us alone!' his mother insisted shrilly. 'You might be... different, but you're not _dangerous_. We just need to show them that!'

I tried to show them that, Finn almost said. I tried for seven years that I wasn't like the others, and now I'm a fugitive and the whole world is at war. And the truth is, I'm starting to think they were right. Maybe I am dangerous. Having me here is definitely dangerous for you.

Instead he stared at her, at a loss for what to say. His father finally broke the silence. 'Eloise,' he said quietly. 'We'll figure this out. No one has to leave.'

Finn felt even guiltier. Why had he thought coming here would be a good idea? All he had done was made things worse.

His mother sniffled, and dabbed at her blotchy cheeks with a silk handkerchief. 'That dress looks lovely on you, dear,' she finally said, looking at Ariane with damp eyes.

'Thank-you,' Ariane said, looking around the table worriedly. 'It's beautiful.'

She sounded dubious, but Finn's mother brightened anyways. 'I wore it to court when I was a girl. The neckline was in fashion then. It was a lovely year.'

Ariane did a heroic job of distracting his mother with questions about court life in Orlais. After what seemed like an appropriate interlude, Finn went back to his room, pleading exhaustion. His mother gave him another bone-breaking hug before he left. He tried desperately to think of something comforting to say, but finally just hugged her back.

Back in his room, he collapsed onto the bed without bothering to get undressed. Sleep refused to come. He played through all possible scenarios in his head. He stayed, the Templars caught him, he died and his parents were upset. Alternately he left, Ariane didn't want him slowing her down anymore, the Templars caught him, he died and his parents were upset. Or maybe he left with Ariane, the Templars caught him...

With a groan he pushed himself up. Every end he could see was unpleasant. Every one except for the least likely one, where he somehow made it to Kirkwall alive, avoided being noticed in the Templar stronghold of Thedas, found the Eluvian, found the Warden, and returned home to his parents. Possibly accompanied by kittens and songbirds. And maybe a rainbow for that extra note of improbability.

He wandered out into the hallway. Maybe he could go see Dog in the kitchens.

Instead, he found himself heading towards the small greenhouse at the back of the first floor. The greenhouse was, as his mother had often told him, the reason she had chosen this home when she decided to officially move to Amaranthine. The climate here was harsh for plants, and she wanted to be able to bring the flowers she had loved in her garden in Orlais to her new country.

He had been there the first time he had manifested his abilities. The exact details were slightly fuzzy; he remembered tripping painfully on a loose floor tile and slamming his head on the stone walkway. Or he would have, anyways, if the ivy vines hadn't snaked around his arm, pulling him back up. Afterwards hadn't been able to reproduce the effect, but he remembered the feeling; exaltation followed by fear, and a dull, persistent buzzing at the base of his skull, a suggestion that nothing would ever quite be the same again.

A few accidental manifestations later, and several gentle-voiced Templars had arrived at the door to have a serious discussion. One of them had let him try on their helmet. The Templars had always tried to send their more personable recruits when children were involved. Or they had in the past, anyways.

The greenhouse was warm and humid. The flowers were in an unseasonal bloom, protected from the real time of year outside.

Finn wandered into the middle of the glass room, feeling slightly uncomfortable. The pathway was narrower than he remembered. He wasn't entirely sure why he had come.

Something moved in the corner of Finn's vision, making him jump. For a ridiculous moment he thought it was Mouse, somehow emerged from his dream into the real world.

He sighed with relief when he realized it was only his father, staring through the glass roof at the night sky beyond. He raised one hand at Finn in awkward greeting.

'Hey,' Finn answered. 'How's Mum? Should I go apologize?'

He hoped his father wouldn't say yes. He wasn't sure he could handle another meltdown, or the accompanying guilt.

His father considered this, and Finn shifted back and forth on his feet. His father had a way of thinking about each sentence that Finn found both enviable and nervous-making. Finn took after his mother, and tended to blurt out whatever came to his mind, often intensely regretting it later.

'Your mother wants you to stay,' his father said, finally. He looked at Finn levelly. 'So do I.'

'I know,' said Finn, feeling even worse. His father's quiet disappointment was somehow just as bad as his mother's tears. 'I'm really, really sorry.'

His father paused again. 'Is it the Templars? I have friends in the city guard. And they aren't popular with King Alistair's army, either.'

'No,' said Finn. 'Yes. Sort of. Seekers, too.' His father no doubt still had friends in the military, but he wasn't sure what they could do against agents of the Divine.

'Never heard of them.'

'They're bad.' Finn started to think of a way to sum up the Seekers and managed to stop himself just in time. The less his parents knew about what he was actually involved in, the safer they would be.

'And there's ... something else,' he added slowly. 'It's sort of complicated.' Describing the search for the Warden was even harder than trying to come up with a description of the Seekers.

'And I'm not sure if I can explain it without sounding mental,' he finished, realizing exactly how inadequate that sounded.

'Is it the rebellion?' his father asked, looking concerned. 'You can tell me anything, Florian. I'm not going to be angry.'

'No, Dad. I'm not a rebel.' Finn winced at the idea. 'Come on, you know me. I would be the worst rebel. I would have to write a formal letter of apology any time I did something rebellious.'

'Is it that girl?' His father looked slightly embarrassed. 'The elf. Because you know we'll support you. Whatever you want.'

'What? No,.' Finn shook his head emphatically. 'Maker, no. I wish, but... no.'

'Doesn't know what she's missing,' his father said loyally, while looking distinctly relieved. Then he sighed, running a hand through his thinning grey hair. 'It must be important.'

Finn nodded. 'It's kind of mad, to be honest. A total long shot. But...' He shrugged, looking at his feet. 'I've spent a lot of time hiding. I guess I'm ready to try for a long shot?'

Silence fell again. Steam had clouded the glass walls of the greenhouse, and water droplets ran down from the ceiling, leaving streaks of moisture.

'D'you know,' his father said thoughtfully, still looking up at the glass roof, 'when you were born, I thought maybe you'd be a soldier, like me.'

That idea probably hadn't lasted long. Finn had never exactly had his father's disposition.

'Then you were so clever, we thought you'd go to university, study in Val Royeaux,' he continued. 'Then I thought you'd be a Senior Enchanter.'

And instead he was an apostate. 'Sorry.'

'Now, I think maybe you'll be a hero.'

'I...' Now he really had no idea what to say. 'Thanks. Thank-you.'

His father nodded, looking slightly uncomfortable. 'Let me talk to your mother. How long can you stay for real?'

'Three days. Or thereabouts.' That was when the ship to the Free Marches was leaving. He hoped he could figure out a way to be on it.

His father turned to go back into the house. 'When you're done your... whatever it is. Come back. '

Finn's throat felt tight. 'I will. Promise.'

The older man nodded in response. 'We'll be waiting.' He opened the wooden door, leaving Finn alone in the cooling garden.


	18. Chapter 18

In theory, Ariane knew that a soft feather bed should be an improvement on a bedroll outside. She didn't like it when there was a stone or a root under her back; therefore, logically a bed should be even better than smooth ground. So why was it impossible to get comfortable?

Eventually, when she had run out of cool places on the sheets to roll over onto, she gave up. The heavy blanket made a nice sort of nest when folded up on the floor. Curling up, she could almost pretend she was home in her tent.

It was strange to think of the Dalish camp as home; after all, its location changed frequently. It was the people that made it home, not the place.

When she thought about it, that made it feel more vulnerable than a home made of stone or bricks. People could disappear. Banic had been the most solid thing in her life for years. His mother had come to the clan as a girl, a city elf running from an unpleasant marriage, coming back to the traditions of her ancestors. She had been accompanied by her young son.

Banic had grown up Dalish, and been apprenticed to Ariane's father when he was a teenager. He didn't have the same clear instinct as Ariane, but he was capable enough and well-liked for his easygoing nature.

When her father had died, she felt as though Banic was the only one in the clan who felt the loss the same way she did. It was a shame that her father hadn't lived to see them together. She thought he would have approved.

But then the darkspawn came, and, despite how entrenched Banic was in her life, he was simply gone. The Keeper had gone away just as quickly when the Templars arrived. She wondered how the First was holding up under the strain of leading the clans.

She rolled over again. The nightgown she had borrowed was bulkier than anything she was used to wearing, and the sleeves kept getting tangled. Finally, she drifted off into a fitful sleep.

A bang on the door yanked her out of confused dreams about trying to hide in a forest made of mirrors.

'Ariane!' a voice whispered urgently from outside. 'Ariane, wake up. I need to talk to you.'

Shaking her head to clear it, she glanced at the window. Pitch black. What could possibly be so important that it couldn't wait until morning? She jumped to her feet, feeling a surge of adrenaline. Had someone come looking for them?

Palming the dagger she had put on her bedside table, she cautiously opened the door.

Finn stared back at her. 'Oh good, you're awake,' he said, sounding relieved. There were dark shadows under his eyes, and he clearly hadn't slept.

Ariane stifled a yawn. 'I am now.' She peered suspiciously down the hall. 'Is something wrong? Do we have to leave?'

'No,' said Finn decisively. 'Yes. That is what I wanted to say. Is that I'm leaving. Now right now,' he corrected, while she stared at him in sleepy bemusement.

'I mean, I'm going to Kirkwall,' he went on, speaking extremely quickly. I know you probably want to go home, but I wanted to say that you did what you said you would and you don't have to feel responsible for me. So if you want to go that's okay, but I'm going to go to Kirkwall. I hope. I'm going to try.'

She blinked, confused. 'You had to tell me that right now?'

'It was a lot more coherent in my head,' he admitted.

She sighed, shoulders relaxing for what felt like the first time in days. Although she didn't appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night, in her heart she was relieved. She had worried that the main reason for Finn's commitment at the Tower was that he had nowhere else to go. Now that he was back with his family, she hadn't been sure if he would still care about Kirkwall.

'Are you sure? I would completely understand if you wanted to stay here,' she said, hoping that he didn't take her up on it. She couldn't bear the idea of giving up when they had come so far.

When she considered the idea, she wasn't sure she could bear to give up Finn, either. She had got used to his company. It would be hard to lose.

He shook his head emphatically. 'I don't want to wait for things to happen to me anymore. Can I still come with you?'

She frowned. 'Of course. Why wouldn't I want you to come?' He looked so nervous, she realized. The last time he'd looked that agitated had been when she'd kissed him to distract that mage girl in the Tower. She suddenly found herself wondering what he'd do if she kissed him again. She clenched her teeth, ordering her half-asleep mind to banish the thought.

Fortunately he seemed to distracted to notice her blushing. He nodded, still looking slightly dazed. 'Right. Okay. I'm going to go sleep now.'

'Yes,' she said, wondering exactly how long he had been pacing the halls before speaking to her. 'Good plan.' She waved at him as he wandered back down the hall, then shut the door as quietly as she could.

Sleep felt much closer now, like a heavy curtain over her senses. With another yawn she curled back up on the floor, and started to doze off again.

'So, assuming we can get to Kirkwall, how exactly are we going to get in?'

Ariane stretched her legs out in front of her, easing one of the pretty slippers Eloise had insisted she try on off her feet. The shoes were lovely, but the pointed toes pinched. Her muddy old boots were as soft as cloth, and had been worn in to fit her feet perfectly. They would probably look strange with her borrowed dress, though. And Eloise was letting her, a stranger, stay in her house – letting the woman dress her seemed like the least Ariane could do.

Dog uncurled himself from her feet and yawned, showing his long white teeth. After only a day and a half in the Aldebrants' house, he had already adopted it as his own. He was particularly fond of the soft rug in Cyrus's small study, where he was currently stretched out, adding a considerable amount of brown fur to the green and blue geometric design.

Books lined the walls, suggesting that Finn had inherited his obsession with reading from at least one of his parents. A painted portrait of a striking red-haired woman with jewels in her hair hung on the wall over the desk. Ariane guessed that it was Eloise Aldebrant, back in her days in the Orlesian court. On a desk sat a small globe of glass, containing two tiny porcelain figures surrounded by snow. To her eyes, they looked trapped. She had a crazy urge to break it and set them free.

'You mean we aren't just winging it?' Finn asked, looking surprised. Their time here had treated him well too. There was more colour in his face, and his hands didn't shake as badly. He was in the process of repairing several missed stitches in a knitting project of Eloise's. Ariane couldn't identify exactly what the large orange garment was, but Finn was dutifully patching it up anyways. 'We have a plan?'

Ariane frowned. 'Well, not yet, we don't,' she said, pulling off her other shoe. She and Finn hadn't had that much time to talk about how exactly they were planning on getting into the city. With Cyrus and Eloise visiting the Chantry chapel this morning, it seemed like as good a time as any.

'Okay.' She crossed her arms and tried to focus. 'What do we know about Kirkwall?'

'Um.' Finn considered this. 'Southern edge of the Vinmark Mountains, built on black stone, probably igneous. Wealthy slaving center in the Imperium's heyday but never really recovered after the collapse of the Empire. Famous for some really unpleasant statuary, including one of the only relatively undamaged depictions of the Old Gods. Which is really interesting actually, since...'

His voice trailed off at her dubious expression. 'Oh, okay. Useful information. Um...'

'City under Templar control.' She ticked the points off on her fingers. 'Big wall. Lots of angry people with swords. They must be letting some people in, though. Even religious fanatics have to eat, right?'

'Hey,' Finn objected, 'not all of them are fanatics. Some of them are nice.'

She raised one eyebrow skeptically. 'They are trying to imprison or kill you.'

'Yeah, but... some of them are trying nicely. Alright, so... we pretend to be merchants?'

'Might work,' she said, chewing her fingernail. Finn glared at it pointedly. She ignored him. 'You would have to be the actual merchant.' No one would believe a Dalish clan would trade with a Templar base, and she hadn't seen many elven merchants on the streets of Amaranthine.

'We could say we were thinking of setting up a sale, to explain why we don't have any actual goods. What would we be trading, though?' she wondered. 'Food? Weapons?' It would have to be something desirable, or they could be denied entrance.

'Won't they be suspicious that we don't know anyone in the city?' he asked. 'Don't merchants have contacts and competitors and... bank books and such?'

'I have no idea,' Ariane admitted. 'I don't know anything about merchants.'

'Me neither,' said Finn gloomily.

She scratched Dog's head as he panted appreciatively. 'Maybe we could say we were with a mercenary group or something,' she mused. She could probably play a mercenary far more convincingly than a merchant, and then she would be able to wear her armour.

'They might go for that,' Finn said. 'Or... wait.' His face lit up.

'Idea?'

'Where are they getting their lyrium?' he asked eagerly. 'The lyrium trade with Orzemmar is controlled by the Divine. It was one of the ways of keeping the Templars under control. So with no Chantry affiliation...'

The pieces fell into place. 'They must be getting it somewhere else.'

'Or, with any luck, not getting it,' Finn concluded. 'The official dwarven sellers likely wouldn't want to risk going against the Chantry, which means they're getting it through illegitimate vendors. And probably not as much as they're used to.' He wound a piece of yarn around and around his finger, thinking. 'There was this mage, Godwin, who used to sell extra lyrium to the Templars on the side, and he could never get his hands on much of the stuff.'

'Wow. That was allowed?' Ariane didn't think that an enterprising black market dealer fit into the Chantry idea of a mage under control.

'Nah,' said Finn dismissively. 'They would have imprisoned him for it. But he was always hiding his accounts in the rare books, so everyone who read the third volume of The Noladar Anthology of Dwarven Poetry knew about it.'

'So...'

'So basically just me, yeah,' he finished for her, blushing slightly. 'But he used to deal with human agents sometimes. Middlemen, I guess.'

'Okay, good.' She nodded slowly. 'Great. Progress.' It wasn't quite a plan yet, but it was closer to one than they had had before. 'Your father said he would work on getting us passage on that ship, so we can focus on what we'll do once we're in.'

'What?' said Finn, looking up from the orange wool monstrosity in surprise. 'He did?'

'He wanted to help,' Ariane explained. Cyrus had come to her quietly the previous afternoon, asking if there was anything he could do to assist them. He was clearly concerned for his son's safety, although he hid it better than Eloise.

'And I had no idea how to get on the thing,' she added. 'I've never even been on a ship.' The idea of being surrounded by that much water, with solid land completely inaccessible, was kind of terrifying.

Finn's shoulders sagged in relief. 'Oh, thank the Maker. I thought it was just me.'

'I actually had a nightmare about it last night,' she confessed with a shudder. 'I was trying to track a bear but I couldn't because the boat kept moving. '

Finn winced. 'Can we... I slept kind of badly. Can we not talk about dreams?'

'Only if we can not talk about boats, too.' Even the subject was making her edgy.

She considered the potential flaws in their plan. There were quite a few. 'Alright, so what happens if we're caught?'

'This is also kind of in the range of things I would rather not talk about,' said Finn, looking alarmed. 'Or think about.'

'I mean if it turns into a fight,' she explained. She had fought humans before, but not usually ones in heavy armour like the Templars wore. 'I can do pretty well with my own things, but if I'm in disguise it will be harder.' Civilian clothes still felt awkward.

'At least Dog can't be unarmed,' she added, leaning down to rub his belly. She glanced up at Finn. 'What about you?'

'What do you mean?' he asked, suddenly becoming very absorbed in a snarl of thread.

'Magic,' she clarified. 'If we didn't have to be covert about it.' She knew Finn preferred more academic magic, but he had to have some useful spells available.

'Oh. Combat magic? Um.' He considered this, chewing his lip. 'Healing, I'm okay at that. The ice thing. '

The ice thing had been pretty effective on that bandit, she remembered. Hopefully it would be effective at slowing armoured opponents as well.

'What about the one you used at the Tower?' she asked, remembering how many people had been bowled over by the blue flash of light.

'That one only works on mages,' he said apologetically. 'Uh, hexes, sleep spell, fear spell. Fireball.'

More than she had hoped for. 'Wow. That's a bit... scary.' You thought you knew someone, then it turned out they could have been throwing fireballs the whole time.

Finn blushed again. 'I tried one once that was supposed to make people explode, but the dummy just turned greenish and smoked a little,' he said pessimistically. 'Just because I've done it before doesn't mean I can do it in a fight. As you may have noticed, I'm rubbish at this.' He draped the end of the orange thing over one shoulder to get it out the way, where it clashed horribly with his hair.

'I have never even singed someone successfully, so I'd say you are officially in charge of exploding things,' she joked. 'And I think you're doing pretty well.'

'Nowhere near as well as you.' He smiled at her, and a tingling rush spread over her skin.

Dog rolled over and looked up at her accusingly, and she shook her head to clear it. 'Frankly, I think Dog is destroying us both,' she concluded, resuming petting him. 'He's had this heroism thing down from the start.'

Dog closed his eyes in appreciation. Whether it was at the praise or the headrub, Ariane wasn't sure. She knew the Mabari understood far more of what was said to it than any other creature she'd met. To be honest, it understood more than half the people she'd met, too.

'Maybe he can get us into Kirkwall, then,' Finn suggested.

Ariane grinned. 'Even Templars are vulnerable to puppy eyes, right?'

Finn leaned forward to look at Dog, face serious. 'What do you say, Steve? You up for impersonating a lyrium dealer?'

'I'm not calling him that,' Ariane objecting, laughing.

Dog cocked his head to one side, as if seriously considering the suggestion. 'Don't answer to that,' she told him sternly. He woofed in response.

Ariane felt a sudden, inexplicable wistfulness. She missed her clan and her home, and she was tired of the heat and the noise of this human city, but she realized that she was actually enjoying this break here. She would be sorry to leave.


	19. Chapter 19

After a few days of quiet, the noise and crowd of the dock seemed even more oppressive. The bright sunlight glittered off the water, making Ariane squint. People bustled about, carrying heavy crates and bags. Dog spent a happy few minutes trying to catch a seagull, finally emerging from the water dripping and covered in mud. At least he looked pleased.

At least they were well equipped. Finn's parents had sent them with enough supplies and money for a small army. Eloise had given Ariane a tearful hug, and presented her with the still-unidentified orange knitted object as a parting gift, a gesture Ariane had found both alarming and touching. Finn had managed to talk them out of actually coming to the harbour with them, so they had provided precise written instructions and a surprisingly detailed hand-drawn map.

The captain of the Lady's Luck was not entirely what Ariane had expected. Cyrus had warned her that the captain was somewhat notorious around the coast, with a reputation for piracy. That at least explained why the ship was willing to go to the Free Marches amidst such political unrest.

The Lady's Luck was apparently their third ship, having lost one to mutiny and another to a storm. Ariane had been ready for a grizzled pirate, who would hopefully value their gold over their explanations.

While she couldn't discount the rumours of piracy, her mental image didn't quite match up to reality. When she had arrived to see a scantily clad, strikingly beautiful dark-haired human woman talking seriously with various burly sailors, she had thought that this was her first sighting of a real live prostitute. She had been kind of excited, actually, as if she had seen a rare bird in the woods. It took her a moment to realize that far from enticing the men, this woman was berating their incompetence with a truly astonishing vocabulary and no apparent need to stop for air.

Ariane had immediately made it her goal to avoid being noticed by the captain, whose name she gathered was Isabela, at all. She had almost made it, getting as far as the rough wooden boarding platform of the galley they were supposed to be on. Dog growled ominously as they climbed the ramp, but slowly followed when Ariane reassured him.

She was about to board the ship proper when Isabela appeared out of nowhere, blocking her path with both hands on her hips.

'Who the hell are you?' she demanded, kohl-rimmed dark eyes sweeping them both from head to toe.

Ariane shifted uncomfortably. They were dressed like civilians – their odder gear had been bundled into fairly generic looking backpacks – but she couldn't help but feel like Isabela could tell that she wasn't a regular maid. She tried self-consciously to lose her combat stance and slouch more.

'G- Godwin. Ma'am,' Finn answered, after an awkward pause. They had decided it would be easiest to just use Godwin's name – hopefully someone might remember him as a real lyrium dealer. Finn's eyes were fixed on his feet in fear.

Or maybe he was just trying to avoid looking at Isabela's cleavage. The captain seemed to treat jewelry as a valid substitute for clothing. Even the sailors she had been shouting at were eyeing her figure now that her back was turned.

Ariane felt a sudden childish wave of jealousy. She might be the best hunter in her whole clan, but she would never turn heads like that. Not that she was certain she would want to, but it might be nice, just once.

Isabela arched one thin dark eyebrow. 'Really,' she answered, tone making it clear how likely she thought that was.

Ariane opened her mouth to back up the excuse, then promptly gave up. She wasn't going to be able to lie well enough to convince this woman.

'No one,' she said, hoping that Isabela would drop it. They were paying, after all.

Isabela snorted derisively, flipping her long hair over one shoulder. 'That I can believe.' She shrugged dismissively. 'Honestly, I couldn't care less who you lot are. Cause any trouble on my ship, and you'll be off it whether we've docked or not.'

A couple of sailors carrying cargo into the hold caught her eye. 'Where the hell are you putting that?' she yelled, making the men quail in fear. She strode off, muttering, 'You want anything done...'

'At least being asked too many questions isn't going to be a problem?' Finn ventured, as they escaped onto the main deck.

'No wonder they're all so jumpy,' Ariane muttered, indicating the sailors, who did indeed look rather nervous. 'Do you think all of her pants went down with her last ship?' For some reason the thought that Finn might find Isabela attractive particularly irked her. She had sort of thought he was... well, less obvious. Not all males were so easily distracted, were they?

'In addition to style,' came Isabela's voice from shockingly close behind her, 'I also have fantastic hearing.'

Ariane turned around slowly, feeling mortified. How could the captain move so quickly? Why couldn't her earrings wound jingle or something?

Isabela's arms were crossed. 'Cabin's are down one deck and to your left. Don't come out unless you have a seriously good reason. Meals in the canteen morning and evenings.' She eyed Dog suspiciously. 'And keep the dog out of the way.'

Dog seemed to consider growling, but thought better of it. Isabela turned to go manage the rest of the crew.

Ariane could feel her face getting hot. 'How long is this supposed to take?' she asked.

'A few days, at least' said Finn gloomily, as they descended the narrow staircase to the lower decks. Dog whined in agreed misery.

* * *

Ariane suspicions about the suitability of boats as an environment for Dalish hunters were rapidly confirmed. The sea as they set out was clear and calm, and the wind was, as far as she could gather from the sailors, in their favour.

Unfortunately she spent too much time below decks feeling nauseous to enjoy the good weather. The steady gentle rocking of the boat made her feel as though a small earthquake was constantly taking place under her boots.

She had a hard time not thinking of the depths below them. At least tall buildings rested on the ground. The Lady's Luck was bobbing along on top of a void. No matter how many times she reminded herself of the mission at hand, it was hard to feel heroic when her stomach lurched with every wave. By the third day, she felt cramped and cagey.

The crew was grating as well. The few other passengers kept mostly to themselves – these days, almost no one went to the Free Marches for legitimate reasons. The sailors, though, were a grabby bunch, and Ariane's servant clothes (as well as her status as one of the only women on board) seemed to make her an automatic target. She'd have thought that with a captain as tough as Isabela, they would have learned some respect by now. Apparently she was wrong.

'Does stabbing sailors count as causing trouble?' she asked Finn, on the evening of their third day at sea. She fingered the knife she kept in her sleeve. 'Cause the next one to whistle might get a response they don't expect,' she said, imagining the response if she didn't have to stay under cover.

They were sitting on the cramped deck. Finding somewhere to talk on the ship had proved to be almost impossible. Dog had refused to leave the cabin at all, and had spent most of the journey whimpering under Ariane's bunk. Ariane had learned to ignore the lewd comments that resulted from the two of them spending time in one cabin (although Finn still turned the colour of a tomato at every remark), but she was desperate for fresh air. Most of the sailors were below decks for their evening meal, and sitting behind a stack of storage crates, they were as isolated as they would ever be.

'I don't know,' said Finn. Life at sea hadn't been treating him well either. She had barely seen him eat, and his face had a distinct green tinge. Since they had set off, he had spent almost all of his time holed up in the cabin, poring over his notes on the Eluvian.

She had tried asking how it was going, and received only rapid subject changes in exchange. This was the first time she had seen him upstairs. 'What about being sick on the deck?'

She winced. 'If that was a crime I'd have walked the plank by now.'

'At least they're not asking questions,' said Finn, shrugging.

That much was true. No one had bothered inquiring exactly why they wanted to straight into an area of political unrest. Then again, this was one of the only ships still trading with said area.

'I kind of get the feeling the captain might not be too worried about legality,' Ariane said. She had heard even more rumours from the crew at meals that Isabela had been a pirate before the war. Now that trade was so dangerous though, legitimate business paid just as well as piracy.

Or semi-legitimate. Ariane still wasn't sure what the hold was so full of.

Finn frowned at the mention of the captain. 'Every time she says something I feel like she's making a joke, and I never get it.' He looked out over the water, which was lit up the colour of a flame. 'The sunset's nice, though.'

'Yeah,' she said, looking out across the flat water. 'It is.' The sun had sunk halfway below the horizon, settling there as an orange globe. The clouds surrounding it were lit up with a firey pink glow.

The same sunset would be over her home right now. She wondered if they'd moved camp yet. It was dangerous to stay in one place for too long. The clan needed to stay together to stay safe. This was the longest she had been away in seven years.

'Um,' said Finn, nervously. 'By the way. There's something I think I mistranslated in that book, and it kind of changes...' His voice trailed off when he saw her face. 'Are you okay?'

To Ariane's embarrassment she felt her eyes fill with tears. 'It's nothing,' she said, wiping her eyes furiously. Her chest felt tight. 'Homesick.'

'Do you want to... talk about it?' Finn asked tentatively. He awkwardly put his hand on top of hers. She clutched it tightly.

'I wonder how my mother is,' she said, finally. She had been thinking of her parents ever since she had met Finn's family, although their two families had almost nothing in common.

'She's an armourer.' Once she started talking, the words came more easily. 'Mostly works with leather. Ever since the war started, she's been complaining that the mages and Templars scare off all the good game, so she can't get any decent materials to work with.'

'We have a new Keeper,' she continued when he didn't stop her, 'but they're not much more than a child. My mother and a few of the other elders have been making a lot of the decisions. She won't want to leave until I'm back.'

Her throat still felt tight. There was nothing like being away from your family to make you feel like a child again.

'I just... hope they don't wait too long,' she said finally. 'I don't know what would happen if we lost this Keeper.' Especially on her account. Keepers were supposed to lead the clans. Even if the new one wasn't really up to the task, losing him would be a huge blow to morale. And the Templars had been expanding their searches further and further lately.

'They know what they're doing, though,' Finn reassured her. He sounded much more certain than she felt.

She shrugged, feeling foolish. 'I just can't stand feeling like there's nothing I can do. I don't know what I would do if...' She couldn't imagine going on without the knowledge that there was somewhere familiar for her to go back to.

'How do you do it?' she asked, then immediately felt like an idiot. Just because she was scared of losing her home didn't mean she should bring up how Finn had lost his.

She started to form an apology for being insensitive, but he was biting his lip and his eyes were focused on nothing. 'I don't know,' he said quietly. 'I tried ignoring it and that didn't really work. I guess now I try to focus on the people I still have.' He blushed red, suddenly looking profoundly embarrassed.

Ariane nodded. 'You're right.'

She was doing something, she reminded herself. If the Warden could really work with both sides and sort things out, then finding him was helping her clan. And her mother.

'I just need to keep doing... what we're doing,' she said, not wanting to mention the specifics of their quest. Just because she couldn't see the captain didn't mean the woman couldn't hear her. 'For them.'

She realized she was still holding Finn's hand unnecessarily tightly, and loosened her grip. Finn fell soundly into the category of people she couldn't stand losing, she realized. In some ways she wished he had stayed with his family – he would have been safer there – but she was profoundly glad to have him with her.

'I'm sorry. You were saying something about those notes?' She remembered something about a translation, and she felt bad for interrupting.

'Oh,' he said, starting. 'Nothing. Boring stuff.'

Ariane vaguely knew she should pursue the subject. The sun was finally setting, though, and the warm breeze on deck was soothing after so much time in her claustrophobic cabin. Hopefully Dog wouldn't be angry that she had left him alone for so long.

Suddenly, the nights of sitting awake thinking about her family caught up with her, and she realized she was exhausted. She yawned and leaned against Finn, hoping he wouldn't mind. He jumped again slightly, but didn't say anything, so she hoped it was alright. Besides, he was extremely comfortable.

With the sun going down, even the rocking boat seemed soothing instead of nervous-making. She yawned again and closed her eyes. She could ask about the translation thing once she'd rested for just a few minutes. Then they could work on what they were going to say to get into Kirkwall. There was a lot of preparation that had to be done. And she was going to get right to it, in just a few... minutes...

* * *

Thank-you for reading, and if you have any feedback or corrections, please leave a review or send me a PM!


	20. Chapter 20

'Ariane?'

The elf woman snored softly in response. Finn tried to shift her from his totally numb shoulder, but she wouldn't budge. 'Hey. Um. Sorry. But it's getting kind of late...'

He really was sorry, too. When she had fallen asleep on his shoulder, he hadn't even wanted to breathe for fear of disturbing her. That had been an hour and a half ago though, and the night sky had darkened to pitch black as the clouds gathered overhead. Now an ominous rumble of thunder had brought several of the sailors above deck to appraise the weather.

He had wanted to talk to her about the rituals surrounding the Eluvian. How the more he dug into them, the more it seemed like the Dalish girl in Kirkwall might have been right all along. That they were impossible to perform without someone else, someone on the other side to open the door.

She had seemed so homesick and sad, though, and feeling useful had been so nice. And then she had fallen asleep.

'Mmph... Wha..?' she mumbled, without opening her eyes. With a sigh she snuggled into his shoulder and resumed snoring.

Finn tried shaking her gently, to no avail. He had thought hunters would need to sleep lightly, to avoid bears or something. Apparently not so. 'Okay,' he said, slowly standing while hoisting her by the shoulders. 'We're going downstairs now. So get up...'

He pulled her into an upright position, where she leaned heavily on his side, eyes half-closed. A sheathed dagger fell out of the sleeve of her dress and landed on the wooden deck with a dull smack. Finn leaned down and picked it up, reminding himself never to make her angry even if she seemed unarmed.

Carefully, with one of her arms slung over his shoulder, he guided the mostly-asleep Ariane downstairs. He would wait until morning, and discuss the Eluvian problem with her then. Involving a demon was unbelievably dangerous. Maybe together they could think of another way. And if not...

He knew demons were liars; the one which seemed trustworthy more than any. But he had read every tome the Circle library had on blood magic before they were confiscated by the First Enchanter. There had to be some way to make it safer. Demons liked deals, almost as much as they liked to cheat. Maybe he could work out something foolproof.

He realized how stupid that was a moment after thinking it. Being well-read was one thing, but assuming he could outthink a demon was just reckless.

Dog growled softly as he dragged Ariane into her tiny cabin. The Mabari's dark brown eyes looked at him accusingly.

'I didn't do anything,' Finn said defensively. 'She's just tired.'

Ariane seemed slightly more awake now; she climbed into bed with minimal assistance. 'Thank you...'she mumbled into her pillow. Her hands were wrapped in the confusing orange kitted thing Finn's mother had given her. She hadn't even bothered to take her boots off.

'You're welcome,' said Finn. He wondered if he should get her a blanket, but Dog had already climbed onto the foot of the bed and settled there with a heavy sigh. 'Good night...'

'Hey,' she said sleepily, as he turned to leave. Her head was still buried in her pillow, her eyes closed. 'You can do this.' She waved her hand vaguely, failing entirely to indicate what 'this' was. 'So... don't be scared. Of stuff.' Apparently satisfied with this baffling statement, she rolled over and curled up into a ball.

Finn froze. He realized her dagger was still dangling, forgotten, from his fingers. He was sure she didn't have any idea of what he had uncovered about the magic mirror, or what he had been considering doing minutes earlier. 'Okay. Listen, Ariane...' She was already fast asleep.

She thought he could do this. It wasn't true, of course; no one could use blood magic without danger.

But what was it he had said to her? Something about focusing on the people left who mattered to you.

Maybe for her he could do this.

Part of it would be getting it set up before he lost his nerve. Back in his own cabin, he pushed the chest from under the bunk against the inside of the door.

Wards came next, so if somehow he actually brought a whole demon into the cabin, instead of just communicating with one, at least it would go no further. He prayed there weren't any other mages on board.

The lines of the ward spell lit the tiny room with a dull white glow. Finn ran through the possible methods of getting in touch with a creature from the Fade. The actual spells differed in both difficulty and safety, but there was definitely a common theme.

To distract himself, he gathered a quill and blank parchment and set them up in front of himself on the wooden floor.

Ariane's dagger suddenly looked extremely large and very sharp. Now that he had got his head around the idea of blood magic, he found he was irrationally afraid of extracting the actual blood. How much would be necessary? A sharp knife meant it would hurt less, right? And the more he thought about it, the worse it would be.

Cautiously, he pushed the razor edge against the palm of his left hand, and bit back a yell as it drew blood.

The knife had left a shallow red line on his skin. Pitiful. It was hardly even bleeding. Only now that he'd started, restarting was even harder. Eyes clamped shut, he pushed the knife harder into the gash he'd already made. It was a struggle not to whimper. He had to be the only blood mage ever who felt sick at the sight of blood.

Finally, blood started to trickle down his wrist, and he could put the knife down. He held out his throbbing hand over the parchment, so that red would drip onto the page. 'Ow, ow, ow...'

There was something in the Spiritorum Etherialis about this. It was for summoning helpful spirits, but the actual practice was depressingly similar.

What had the incantation been? 'F-fero sanguine spiritus extra mundum...' Finn ran through the rest of the spell as fast as he could, then held the quill to the bloodied page. Nothing. 'Mouse? Mouse, it's me. Finn. Again.' Still nothing.

Finally, slowly, the quill began to move. It jerked sideways, bringing his hand with it, then tilted as if disoriented. It dipped the nib in the small pool of blood that had collected, then paused uncertainly at the top of the page.

At last it scratched out a message in spiky, uneven handwriting.

_im busy_

'What?' Finn had been ready for a lot of answers, but that wasn't one of them. 'No! You can't do that! Look, I summoned you properly. See?' He held up his bloody hand to the page.

_well you should have checked if i was free first_, the quill wrote, before becoming still again.

Mages were warned from the time they were children not to listen to demons. They were clever, people said, and they were seductive. They could tell you what you wanted to hear. No one had ever mentioned to Finn that they were irritating as all hell.

'Listen,' he whispered loudly, 'I just broke every rule I have ever been taught to talk to you. The least you can bloody do is listen to me.'

The quill paused languidly, as if considering.

_make it fast then_

'And punctuate!' Finn yelled in annoyance, before clapping a hand over his mouth.

_No need to shout_, the quill wrote, handwriting shifting from a childish scrawl to tiny, neat cursive. It looked a lot like Finn's own handwriting now, he realized. Despite it being an inanimate object, Finn had the distinct impression that the quill was smirking.

'Alright,' Finn said, whispering again. 'Sorry.' Now he was apologizing to a demon. He needed to get back on topic. 'How exactly did the elven mages open the Eluvian?'

_They had someone on my side open the door_, Mouse answered. _Then they travelled through my realm to their intended destination._

So the Eluvian used paths through the Fade to allow transport. Travelling through the Fade meant that you wouldn't necessarily wind up in the same world you started in. The Warden could be anywhere.

'And why would someone on your side work with them?' Finn asked, although he was fairly sure he already knew the answer.

He wasn't disappointed. _Same reason I'm talking to you now._

'The used their blood. They were all blood mages?'

_They didn't see it like that._ The quill was flying across the page now._ More mature as a culture. They recognized that spirits and demons aren't so different._

'And that's the only way to do it.' Finn wasn't too hopeful about another option. He had been in the Fade once before; when the Circle had come under attack and a Sloth demon had knocked out half the mages and Templars in the place. He had managed to avoid being killed, but between the changing geography and the nightmare manifestations, his chances of making it out without intervention had been basically nil. The Warden's intervention.

_That's how the elves did it_. _And they built the things._

'So,' said Finn nervously, 'what would it cost for you to do the same thing?'

_Blood. You'd survive_, Mouse added before Finn could ask exactly how much blood. _And I come through the other way._

'To possess someone.' Finn's voice was flat.

_If it seems necessary. Like I said, not you. Someone dead, or dying anyways._

'That's horrible.' Finn's voice sounded sure, but his mind was less solid. If the war were really stopped, hundreds or even thousands of deaths could be prevented.

_But necessary. Think how many you could save_, Mouse wrote, echoing Finn's guilty thoughts. _Blood like the offerings of the old masters, and passage into your world. In exchange, a doorway to the Fade, and a guiding path to the Warden._

There was some trick here, Finn was certain. 'You can't kill anyone.' The weather had worsened outside; he could feel the ship pitching from side to side. The howling wind was audible even down here.

_Done. _

_Do you accept these terms?_

'I...' What choice did he have? 'Yes. I do.'

The quill hovered over the almost-full page for an instant. It looked oddly satisfied.

_It has been a pleasure. Good luck on your journey. _

With that the quill and paper both dissolved into fine black ash. An unseen breeze scattered it around the floor, despite the lack of windows in the cabin.

'Thanks...' Finn mumbled, before he could stop himself. He would need to work on this reflexive politeness issue. Blood mages didn't have to apologize for everything they did, did they?

Blood mage...

Realizing he was an apostate had been terrifying. The title 'blood mage' was bizarrely less so. Maybe it was because no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't really think of himself that way. Maleficar were meant to be invariably monstrous, men and women who had given up their humanity for power. He just felt desperate, and tired, and most of all scared.

There had been a young man in the Circle when Finn was younger who had broken his phylactery and used blood magic to escape. Finn couldn't remember his name, but he remembered the mage; a pale, nervous mess who had been terrified to face his Harrowing, but more afraid of what not completing it meant. His friend, an older girl called Amell, had died during her own Harrowing, and they were informed shortly after that the apprentice was now to be considered dangerous.

At the time, Finn had been astounded that the mage had managed to keep his true power-hungry nature concealed so effectively. Now he wondered if the boy had felt much the same as Finn did now. Trapped.

Finn dispelled the wards, careful to stay quiet. His hand had finally stopped bleeding, but every time he moved it, another stab of pain shot through his arm.

Summoning the last of his energy, he muttered a healing spell. His hand was briefly surrounded by blue light, and...

Nothing happened. The pain was slightly dulled, but the cut refused to heal.

One of the charming bonuses of blood magic, he supposed. When he thought about it, it made sense – sacrificing your physical body for magical power sort of lost its meaning if you could just use the power to fix your body right after.

It still really hurt though. He bandaged it as best he could with a strip of fabric, wincing as he knotted the cloth over his palm.

He wondered how his blood dolls were doing. He had assumed that if one of them died he would be able to feel it, but he hardly felt any attachment to them at all anymore. Apparently they had adapted to independent life far faster than he had.

That or his phylactery really had been one of the ones destroyed. The thought was both comforting and slightly dismaying. If that were the case, there really would be no one keeping tabs on what he did anymore. He didn't feel old enough to be on his own.

Maybe that was the problem, he realized, as he crawled into bed and tried to ignore the swaying of the boat. The Templars had been so intent on keeping the mages protected and safe that, despite all their power, they had never grown up. A whole order of powerful, angry children. And children always rebelled against their parents eventually.


	21. Chapter 21

There had been a small group of mages in the Circle who had insisted that leaving the Tower regularly (permitted or not) was actually part of learning. No matter the intensity of the descriptions or the detail in the illustrations, some things simply couldn't be communicated by books. At the time he had thought it was wishful escapism, but the further Finn travelled from what was familiar, the truer this seemed to hold.

The chains of Kirkwall, though, he could have lived without comprehending. Expelling that much energy to make something beautiful or something significant made sense; it was admirable. But so much work to create a symbol of brutality... He knew the chains functioned as a water gate as well, but did the ancient Tevinters have to make them so scary?

If the magisters of old had outdone themselves on the intimidation front, the Templars who occupied Kirkwall were doing their best to live up their legacy. As the ship passed under the massive chains, it became apparent that someone had repurposed them. Corpses hung from the links, feet dangling high above the water.

One, a woman, was close enough to see its face. Her tongue was black and swollen, her skin a mottled grey-green. It was almost a pity they would have hated each other; the ancient Tevinters and the Templars made a good team.

Finn realized Ariane was standing beside him on the deck. She was looking up at the bodies overhead, dark against the overcast sky. Her face was impassive, but she was chewing a thumbnail. Every now and then she cast a worried glace over at him.

'You know,' said Finn conversationally, trying to set her at ease, 'I'm pretty sure Kirkwall has its own gallows. Do you suppose they're out of order?'

He was mildly proud of how steady his voice sounded, but Ariane still looked concerned. He pointed at the body – this one more clearly a mage in tattered robes - nearest overhead, which had blackened stumps for arms.

'No hands. See? No spellcasting.' Bit of a quaver there. Ariane looked dubious now. He had the feeling he wasn't helping his case.

'As execution methods go, it seems like more trouble than it's worth.' She reached over to take his hand and caught the lumpy bandage. 'What happened here?' she asked, examining it.

'Oh, nothing,' said Finn hastily. 'Cut myself on... the railing.'

'The wooden railing.'

'Not all of us can be coordinated warrior types, alright?' he objected, feeling ridiculous. He snatched his hand away, then immediately regretted it - the contact had been nice.

'I'd fix it, but, you know,' he added in a lowered voice, indicating the crew. 'Don't do so well with an audience.'

'I've got a potion somewhere.'

'It's not a big deal. Don't worry,' he said, hoping she'd drop it.

If he died, Finn decided suddenly, he was going to tell her how he felt. Not after he died, that didn't make any sense. But before. If things looked really bad.

He couldn't think of any way of phrasing it that didn't sound stupid, which would be a problem. The truth - that he'd fallen in love with her when he was nineteen and it hadn't ever really gone away - just sounded kind of sad, and despite speaking he couldn't think of any better words. Maybe that would be one of the advantages of dying. If she got angry, laughed at him, or worst of all, felt sorry for him... well, he wouldn't have to deal with it for very long. Besides, wasn't there some kind of rule that you weren't allowed to make fun of dying people?

As soon as he made the decision, he felt a rush of nerves. Don't worry, he thought, repeating his advice to Ariane to himself. There was plenty else to worry about.

The storm the previous night seemed to have finally broken the unseasonable heat. The wind was chilly and damp, and the morning sky was heavy and grey. Kirkwall looked like an illustration of a fortress in a children's novel in the cold pale light.

Approaching the dock took a surprisingly long time. The harbour was bigger than it had appeared from the outside. As it came into focus, Finn realized that, compared to the bustling harbour in Amaranthine, it was also shockingly empty.

The process of docking was agonizingly slow. The sailors set about preparing to disembark, although they did so without their usual chatter. The ramp was raised, and Isabela strode authoritatively down it to meet an armoured Templar who was waiting below.

Ariane hefted her pack, and handed another too Finn. It was suspiciously light – she had definitely taken the heaviest equipment herself. She was dressed as a servant, so it made sense for their cover. He still felt guilty though.

As the rest of the ship slowly emptied out, the few other passengers (also looking rather green) emerged, blinking, from below decks and gathered on the dock at the bottom of the ramp. Finn and Ariane followed, trying to stay in the middle of the group to stay concealed. Even Dog seemed to grasp the gravity of the situation. Instead of sniffing at the ankles of passersby, he followed silently at Ariane's heels, looking around with worried brown eyes.

Another Templar appeared with a ledger, looking distinctly bored. She waved her hand, and the first of the other passengers broke off from the group and approached her.

Finn wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but it hadn't been a lineup. Usually danger presented itself without warning, and the only way to respond was with action. Waiting to be interviewed meant that there was far too much time for thinking. Finn tried to use it to mentally review their cover story, but the image of handless corpses dangling from the giant chains kept sneaking in. He distracted himself by adjusting Dog's collar, and tried to ignore the mounting dread as the line grew shorter and shorter.

The Templar didn't even look up when they arrived at the front of the line. 'Name.'

'Godwin,' Finn answered, feeling intensely guilty. For all he knew the real Godwin was dead, so there was no risk of contradiction, but lying to a Templar still felt unbelievably wrong. Besides, what if they had decided they didn't care to trade with a mage after all?

Ariane stood silently beside him, failing entirely to look like a meek maid. The Templar glanced at her and she crossed her arms over her chest, fixing her jaw as if about to challenge the woman to combat. Finn fervently wished that she could just do this part.

'What's your business in Kirkwall, Serah Godwin?' Up close the Templar turned out to be a surprisingly slight woman in her mid thirties. She looked slightly askance at Dog, but said nothing.

'We're –'

Not we, he reminded himself, I. I'm supposed to be the merchant here. '_I'm_ here on behalf of Rogek. A trader in Orzammar.' Who I really hope none of you are actually in contact with, he added silently.

'Trader of what?' she asked, looking up for the first time. 'Weapons? Food? Armour?'

Damn. Would a real lyrium smuggler admit their trade? Was there some kind of codeword he should know?

'O- other supplies, Ser. I'm not supposed to...' Finn stammered. The Templar frowned and he shrugged helplessly.

Suddenly her face cleared, and she examined him with renewed interest. 'Let's see these supplies, then.'

Finn looked back at her, throat contracting in fear. His heart was pounding so hard he wondered if the Templar could hear it. He should have known better than to try to fool the Templars, a voice at the back of his mind whispered. Hadn't they always told him that if any mage tried to lie they'd find out? He and Ariane didn't have any documentation. Even if he had tried to forge some, he had no idea what kind of paperwork merchants would carry.

'You can't tell me you didn't bring a sample,' she urged. Her face was grey, he realized, with red-rimmed eyes. He had taken her for a small woman, but looking closer she appeared unhealthily thin under her armour. Withdrawal symptoms.

She wasn't arresting them. She was an addict, and she was desperate.

Finn exhaled slowly, fear ebbing away slightly. A strange sadness rushed in to fill its place. The Templars were jailers, but also protectors. They represented order. Had they always been this fragile?

Feeling profoundly self-conscious, he fished around in his back and finally located a lyrium potion. His hand was shaking so badly that he almost dropped it. He held it out to her as covertly as he could.

After glancing surreptitiously at the other Templar, the woman took quickly took it.

'Welcome to Kirkwall, Serah,' she said, without eye contact, and ushered them forward into the grimy streets. Finn bowed his head reflexively and then walked away, trying not to look back.

'Is it just me or was that disturbingly easy?' Ariane muttered once they were safely a few blocks away.

'What are you talking about? That was terrifying.'

Kirkwall must have been interesting once, Finn thought, if you liked cities. Now it was like a ghost. Factories stared at them with empty windows for eyes, and their footsteps echoed in the narrow streets. The few people they passed were grim-faced and moved hurriedly. They seemed washed-out, colourless.

'Besides, what would we possibly be able to get up to in here?' he added, as they wandered through the desolate streets. His heart was still thudding. As soon as he spoke, he was half-certain a Templar would hear it and arrest him on the spot.

'Where do you suppose it is?' Ariane asked. There was no need to say what 'it' was. 'Do we... ask around?'

'We could ask Templars,' Finn suggested. 'Seeing as they appear to be literally the only people in this city. Then we can have our hands cut off and get hung.'

'Okay. Calm down.'

'Sorry,' he mumbled, lowering his voice. 'This is scary.'

Ariane shook her head slowly. ''It could be worse.' Her face was pale too, he realized, and her eyes were wider than normal. More than ever he wished he could give her a hug. Dog pressed his cold nose comfortingly into Finn's hand.

'Let's think about this,' Ariane said, looking around. She pointed at the upper levels of the city, where spires and towers rose against the sky liked blackened teeth. 'Up there looks posh.'

'Which suggests we don't want to be up there.' The buildings hardly looked pleasant, but they were certainly too large for an Elven apostate to own.

'But down there looks destroyed,' Ariane continued, pointing downhill, where the factories were replaced by hovels and darkened alleys.

'Which is a bit on the extreme side.'

'So... we'll go this way,' she concluded, choosing a street that would lead them to the midlevel of the city.

'She probably lived in the Alienage,' Finn pointed out, trying to think. Most of the elves at the Circle had been from alienages around Fereldan. 'If we can find where that was... Maybe there will be signs?'

'Yes,' said Ariane seriously. 'Because there have been so many signs before. The signage track record is not good.'

'In addition to being very well armed and murderous, Templars are highly organized,' Finn informed her. Talking was making him feel much better.

'Really.'

'Little-known fact.'

'We can hope,' she said, grinning.

* * *

Hours later, the sun was sinking below Kirkwall's jagged skyline, and Finn was exhausted. Leaning against a rough stone wall, he tried to gauge what time it was. Seven, maybe? The air was starting to grow cold, and a biting wind had picked up and was rattling through the narrow streets.

Ariane stopped beside him, looking around grimly. 'I think I'll just take this as final confirmation that cities are awful.' Dog collapsed at their feet, heaving a heavy sigh. His breath steamed in the cold evening air.

'I'm not sure if Kirkwall is the best place to judge by.' They were standing in a desolate stone courtyard. Wooden shop stalls were set up in front of the stone houses, and a dry copper fountain gathered dust in the middle of the square.

Finn had a vague idea they'd been through this way before, but when and going in what direction was a mystery. He wasn't even sure where the docks were anymore. Maybe this was the Alienage, and they'd been here the whole time. What did Alienages even look like?

'Gods. Bloody humans and their bloody cities.' Ariane chewed her thumbnail idly. Automatically, Finn batted her hand away from her mouth, then winced when a jolt of pain shot up his wrist. The cut on his palm didn't seem to be healing well.

'Bloody elves and their bloody Alienages,' he retorted, mimicking her tone and resisting the urge to take the bandage off his hand and have a look. 'At least the humans are easy to find. They're just... a bit fanatical and murderous.'

'Speaking of which...' Ariane turned on her heel and started walking casually in the other direction. Finn followed, although his sore feet protested with every step. The patrols were everywhere, and they would attract attention just standing around. Dog whined plaintively as he stood up.

'Where are we going?' Finn had to hurry to keep up.

'Alienage, remember?'

'Yes. I remember. But...' Finn gestured helplessly at the dying orange light. 'It's night. Or it will be soon.'

Ariane frowned. 'You're tired.'

'No!' Fantastic, now she though he was whining. 'It's just... it's not very normal for people to be out at night, is it?'

She shrugged, looking confused. 'I suppose not.' She started biting her nail again. 'It's normal where I'm from.'

'Not for me.' Being outside at all wasn't normal for him. 'I just... won't we get mugged? Or arrested? Isn't that what's supposed to happen when you're out at night?' He tried to remember the details of the Chantry sisters' dire warning about sneaking out of the Tower. 'Also... I'm tired. A little. And so is he,' he added, pointing at Dog. The Mabari yawned theatrically, showing his yellowed canines.

Ariane nodded. 'Okay. You're right. We should find somewhere to sleep.' She looked around the darkened streets with a frown of concentration. 'How do we do that?'

'No idea,' Finn admitted, slumping. He was about ready to fall asleep in the street, though. The cobbles didn't look that uncomfortable.

Suddenly, Dog's head shot up with interest. Finn followed his gaze. A small group of people were heading into a particularly decrepit looking building across the square. He was about to dismiss them when he realized that one of them was the captain of their ship. Isabela, that was it. Swagger unmistakable even at this range. Apparently the cold didn't affect her, because she still didn't seem to be fully dressed.

Ariane had noticed too. 'Where's she going?' she asked, sounding unenthusiastic.

Dog tilted his head sideways at the building, and Finn caught on. 'She doesn't live here, and neither do those sailors. So they must know somewhere to stay.' He approached the building cautiously.

The windows were too yellowed to see through, but he could hear voices inside; more boisterous ones than he had heard anywhere else in Kirkwall so far. A wooden sign creaked on steel hinges over the door. It was too blackened to read, but the canvas model that hung beside it was more intact. The model roughly resembled a hanged body, arms sticking out rigidly to the side. Finn was unpleasantly reminded of the figures hanging outside.

Dog sniffed the battered entrance. The door abruptly swung open, smacking the Mabari in the nose. He jumped back and growled as a grimy man stumbled out.

The man staggered to the empty fountain and retched. He barely managed to get his head over the copper rim before throwing up. Dog whined in dismay.

When the man was done, he stood up, wiping his mouth and looking around with bleary eyes. Finn started back in horrified fascination. The rogue vomiter caught his eye and smiled weakly, showing greyed teeth.

'You lookin' for the Hanged Man, serah?'

* * *

The inn was larger than it had looked from the outside. It was dominated by a cavernous drinking area, which contained more people than they had seen in several hours in the streets. The air was smoky and thick, and the voices of the patrons echoed and rebounded off the wooden ceiling beams to form a wordless cacophony. From the main room, dim hallways stretched back like tunnels towards the rooms. After the cold outside, the hot stuffy atmosphere was almost a relief.

Finn and Ariane had prepared a carefully scripted explanation of who they were in an alley outside, but he quickly realized that they needn't have bothered. The innkeeper, a red-faced older man, had waved them away irritably when they had approached. Their actual request for a room had been taken by a young Elven bartender, who had been so busy filling drink orders that he had barely looked at their money, much less their faces.

'Room six,' he said, tossing a worn iron key at them. Finn fumbled the catch and promptly dropped it. Ariane averted her eyes politely and Finn stopped to pick it up, red-faced.

'The dog has to stay outside,' the bartender added.

'But-'

'House rules.'

Dog whined pitifully as Finn took him outside into the street. Every few steps the Mabari cast a longing look over his furry shoulder at the lighted windows of the Hanged Man.

'Are you going to be okay out here?' Finn asked, squatting so their faces were level. Dog looked away sullenly.

'I mean it. I'll stay out here if you want.' He immediately regretted the promise. Dodgy inns were immensely preferably to dark alleys.

Fortunately, after some consideration Dog seemed to come around. He sniffed around the side of the inn, finally settling inside what looked like a disused stable. He even permitted Finn to pat his head briefly, although he refused to wag his tail.

Back inside, Ariane had dragged their things into the narrow room that had been assigned to them. 'Bed's yours,' she said, noticing him looking worriedly at the narrow bed which was the only piece of furniture in the room.

'No, you can-'

'I mean it. I like the floor better. Otherwise I would take the bed.'

'Thanks,' he said, hoping she meant it. He couldn't believe how much he was looking forward to sleeping on a real mattress. He sat down.

Ariane sighed. 'I'm starving. Do you think there's food anywhere?'

'I'm not sure. We could ask, though.' He was hungry too. They needed something to bring out to Dog as well.

When asked about the possibility, the bartender looked at them as though they had requested a juggling bear. 'Food? Most people want drinks.' He scratched his head incredulously. 'Yeah, I think we've got some bread and... well, just the bread.'

'Brilliant.' Anything would do at this point.

The man conversed briefly with an irritable-looking barmaid, who returned with half a loaf of slightly dry bread and two mugs of ale.

'No, that's okay,' Finn said, waving the mugs away in alarm. 'We...'

The waitress shot him a look of withering scorn. 'Thank-you,' he said meekly, accepting the mugs.

Ariane regarded them with a frown. 'What the hell are we supposed to do with those?'

A tanned hand weighted with thick gold bracelets darted in and grabbed one of the mugs. 'Well, I'm always willing to accept charitable donations.' Finn twisted his head to see Isabela leaning on the bar, examining her new ale with an expression of amusement. How could someone so flashy sneak up so easily?

'So you found the ground,' she said, rolling her dark eyes lazily at them. 'I thought maybe you were going to get confused and walk off the pier.'

Finn tried desperately to think of something intelligent to say. There had to be some reason why they could have to leave immediately. Ariane stayed silent and eyed the sea captain suspiciously.

The bartender placed a fresh mug on the bar with a thud. 'Courtesy of the gentleman in the corner,' he told Isabela with a wink.

She rolled her eyes again. 'Bloody hell, how clear can I be? Tell him...'

The bartender winced as she launched into the stream of abuse which should be passed on to her admirer. 'I'll just tell him you said thanks, then.'

He retreated and she sighed. 'Looks like you can keep yours after all,' she said, thrusting an ale back into Finn's hand.

'But I really don't want...'

Isabela ignored him. She was studying Ariane with a quizzical expression. 'You're Dalish.' Her eyes scanned Ariane's blood writing.

'I was,' Ariane answered steadily.

'I knew a Dalish girl once.' Isabela's face had softened slightly. 'She had no idea what she was doing in this place either.'

'Good thing I do, then.'

Isabela seemed to consider this for a moment, then grinned. 'I was just meeting a friend.' She nodded to a table in the corner, where a clean-shaven dwarf was surrounded by a crowd of sailors who seemed to be hanging onto his every word. The dwarf leaned in to tell the sailors something, and a moment later the table interrupted into laughter.

'Come sit with us.' Isabela took Finn's wrist. Her grip was like a vice. 'At least then when you get pickpocketed, I'll be able to let you know.'

Finn looked at Ariane in alarm, silently pleading for help. 'We're sort of busy,' Ariane said.

'Consider it part of the transport service.'

The crowd around the table parted as Isabela swaggered up. One of the sailors jumped up automatically, and she slouched into his seat without even looking at him twice.

The dwarf was leaning back in his chair, arms crossed. 'No shit,' he said, grinning widely. 'There I was. In a dragon's den.'

'Dragon's aren't real,' one of the less intoxicated-looking men objected, looking dubious.

'Swear on my ancestors!' The dwarf shot Isabela a look of exaggerated wounded pride. 'Please, Rivaini, salvage my reputation here.'

Isabela laughed. 'There's one to remember. Someone asking me for help with their reputation. Should keep that one for your memoir, Varric.'

She pointed at Finn and Ariane, who were standing awkwardly at the edge of the crowd. 'That's Godwin and his mate. They're idiots. I've decided to be nice to them.'

'How charitable of you,' Ariane muttered.

Isabela laughed again. So did Varric. 'You should be flattered. Her charity is usually considerably more dangerous than this.'

Isabela tapped her chin thoughtfully. 'Wait. Are you talking about the ones I stab or the ones I fuck?'

'Both.' Isabela rolled her eyes theatrically at Varric, who just grinned wider. The sailors laughed, although a few of them looked slightly nervous.

Varric pulled out the chair beside him. Isabela shot one of the other men a sharp look and he scrambled out of his chair. 'Sit down, friends,' Varric said, spreading his arms benevolently. 'You sound almost like you've come to Kirkwall of your own free will. Anyone mad enough to do that must have a decent story to tell.'

Ariane sat down cautiously, her face rigid. Finn sat beside her, setting the two brimming mugs down carefully. 'Um. We don't really have a story. Sorry.'

To avoid having to come up with a reason why, he took a sip of the ale. He almost spat it out. It tasted the way closets sometimes smelled when apprentices forgot potion ingredients inside them.

Varric watched him sputter with an expression of amusement. 'Not a big ale drinker?' Somehow coming from him it sounded friendly instead of critical.

'Not really.' He took another, more cautious sip. It was still revolting.

Beside him, Ariane did the same and grimaced. Varric grinned again. 'It starts tasting better after about six or so.' Finn smiled back slowly. The dwarf's friendliness was infectious.

Varric examined Ariane's face with some interest. 'You're Dalish.'

'So people keep telling me.'

'Not as much of a kitten, this one,' Isabela told him.

Finn started dissecting the dry bread. 'I sort of wanted to hear about the dragon. If that's alright.' That way he could eat, and hopefully after the story they could sneak off.

Varric's eyes lit up. 'Did I say only one dragon? Let me get us another round, serah. We're going to be here a while.'

* * *

Sorry for the super-long chapter! I was having a hard time finding a decent place to break it up.

As always, if you have any advice or spot any typos, please let me know!


	22. Chapter 22

'You know,' said Ariane, examining the foam on the top her new mug of ale, 'you were right.' Around her the room was tilting slightly.

'Of course I was!' Varric crossed his arms indignantly. 'I'm always right.' He paused. 'What was I right about?'

'The beer,' Ariane said, struggling to stay steady on her chair. 'It's a lot less awful now.' He had said that it would get better after the sixth, and this was only her fourth. Or was it her fifth? Beside her, Isabela was draining yet another mug.

The crowd had slowly dissipated as the story about the dragon-infested mine had segued into one about fighting smugglers under the city, and from there into one about hunting bandits in the mountains. Somehow, she and Finn were the only ones left at Varric and Isabela's table. She realized that it must be abominably late, but she was having trouble focusing her eyes and getting up seemed dangerous.

It wasn't her fault though, she reassured herself as she took another sip of hardly-disgusting-at-all ale. Admitting that she had never drunk alcohol aside from some ceremonial wine in her life would have blown her cover. And Varric had turned out to be unbelievably useful. Not only had he known where the alienage was, he had drawn her a map and accounted at least three stores of how he and some friends had beat up roving gangs of muggers in the surrounding area.

Besides, it wasn't like she was drunk. She felt fine. She felt great.

'You're right!' Finn's face was bright and enthusiastic, even if his words were slightly mangled. 'It hardly tastes like socks at all.' His usually pale cheeks were flushed, and his red hair was flopping into his eyes. Her hand itched to fix it.

Varric tipped back his own mug and downed it in one go. He seemed to be able to consume an unlimited amount of the stuff with no ill effect. 'So where was I?' he asked wiping his mouth.

'The cave,' Isabela prompted. 'The one we met Zevran in.'

'Oh, of course!' Varric rubbed his hands in anticipatory glee. 'Well, this particular cave was the same one the Champion had killed the Dalish guardian monster in, so we thought it was safe. But just as we hit the lower levels, we hear this terrible cracking noise, and we round the corner to see-'

Finn shot his hand into the air as if he were in a classroom, narrowly missing his beer. 'It had come back to life!'

Varric frowned. 'Did I tell this one already? There were a lot of caves.'

Ariane shook her head. 'We've seen one,' she said, enjoying having a good story to tell him for once. This was almost like being at home, sitting around the fire, telling legends. 'We saw it get up again.'

Varric's eyes widened. 'You're joking.'

'Nooo,' said Finn, slurring slightly. 'We saw one. It was very...' He frowned, searching for a word. 'Big.'

Varric shot Isabela an accusing look. 'Rivaini, you told me they were boring!'

'I said they were idiots,' Isabela objected. 'Not boring.' A barmaid brought her another drink, and she toasted Ariane. 'You're interesting idiots.'

Ariane grinned. It was probably the beer, but she was finding herself warming to the woman. 'Thanks.'

'Not as interesting as you,' Finn said shyly. 'Did you really see the Tome of Koslun?'

Ariane frowned. Her pleasant feelings were dissipating rapidly. Finn never looked that admiring when he talked to her.

Isabela raised an eyebrow in baffled amusement. 'I didn't _read_ it.'

Finn's face fell. 'Why not?'

Varric raised a hand. 'I still want to hear where you met a vartarrell.'

'It was...' Ariane didn't know what to say. Her head felt like it had been filled with tumbleweeds. 'We were travelling with someone. Things like that just seemed to happen around him all the time.' Nothing had surprised the Warden. She couldn't even picture his face with a surprised expression on it. It just seemed unnatural.

Varric sighed. 'I knew someone like that once.' His eyes misted over.

'It was a long time ago,' Ariane answered.

'Before the war,' said Finn gloomily. He looked dejected. Ariane rested a hand on his shoulder. To her surprise, the contact sent a tingling rush up her arm. She let go hastily, but she still felt dizzy.

'The war.' Varric repeated. Everyone stared at their cups.

'This isn't a war,' Finn mumbled. 'It's a teenage rebellion.'

'It's an exercise in destructive competitiveness.' Varric leaned back in his chair, nodding wisely.

'You mean a pissing contest,' Isabela supplied cheerfully. 'You ask me, they need to get laid.'

'Which side?' Ariane asked skeptically.

'Both.'

Varric laughed. 'Better get cracking, then.'

'Got to start somewhere.' Isabela tossed her dark mane over her shoulder and batted her eyelashes theatrically at Finn. 'So do you get to take any time off from doing a terrible job of sneaking into a Templar stronghold? Cause I'm free.'

Varric laughed, and Finn turned scarlet. 'I –I can't. I have to... wash... things?'

Isabela grinned, obviously enjoying his discomfort. 'Ouch. How about you then?' she asked Ariane with a wink.

Finn choked on his beer. Ariane felt herself blush, and Isabela laughed again.

'To alternative methods of conflict resolution,' Varric declared, raising his mug in a toast.

'I'll drink to that,' Ariane said, willing her face to turn back to its normal colour. She didn't think the beer was helping much. She could hear the Keeper's voice in her head, disapprovingly noting that she wasn't exactly representing her clan at its best.

Her Keeper wasn't there, though, so she could drink whatever she wanted. Somehow it wasn't a pleasure.

'To everyone lost, too,' she said, toasting shakily.

'Both sides.' Finn looked a little lost, like he was seeing things that weren't there. 'Mages and Templars and... Everyone I've already forgotten.'

His left hand was under the table. As subtly as she could manage while drunk, Ariane gave it what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze. He gripped her fingers like an iron clamp.

Isabela toasted with a flourish. 'To less depressing subject matter, maybe? '

'Always!' Varric answered with an easy smile.

Ariane felt faintly relieved. She didn't let go of Finn's hand, though.

'So we thought the big monster was bad the first time around,' Varric continued, picking up his story where he had left off.

'How big?' Finn asked. 'Like... tree-size or taller?'

'Taller.' Varric nodded seriously, rubbing his square jaw. 'Definitely taller.'

'Female maybe,' Finn offered, looking thoughtful. 'Those are supposed to be larger.'

Isabela spun around in her chair, looking bored. 'Your hair is lovely,' she told Ariane out of nowhere. 'Bit prim, maybe, but that can work sometimes.'

'Thank you,' said Ariane, feeling oddly flattered. She wrapped one of her dark braids around her finger. 'It's gone kind of weird today though.' Her normally flat hair had taken on a wave, and was frizzing around her temples.

Isabela nodded. 'That's the ocean. You should see mine on the ship, it's a sentient being all its own. '

Ariane shuddered slightly at the mention of the ship. 'I didn't notice. I think I was too busy throwing up.'

A fresh beer had materialized in front of her; she carefully sipped the foam off the top. It stuck to her lip like a mustache.

Suddenly a tanned hand covered in heavy rings covered the top of her mug. 'You should lay off that, alright?' Ariane scowled, but Isabela's amber eyes remained skeptical. 'Seriously. You're little and I can tell by the lovely gargoyle face you make every time you drink it that you're not used to it. You'll wind up spending another night with your head in a bucket.'

Fuelled by Finn's rapt interest, Varric's storytelling was getting more dramatic. 'The thing roared like a rockslide the first time,' he said, waving a hand for emphasis. 'The second time though, it started throwing...'

Something reflective caught Ariane's eye at the door. Through the haze of beer, it took her a moment to process what she was seeing.

Three men in armour were standing near the entrance, looking awkward and tired. One of them was conversing with the exasperated bartender, and the others were looking around at the patrons. The noise level in the inn didn't all, but Ariane felt the conversations around her take on a note of tension.

Adrenaline flooded her veins, clearing her head slightly. 'We should go to bed.' She put her mug down abruptly, interrupting Varric's story.

'Really?' Finn asked, looking disappointed.

She flicked her eyes at the Templars by the door. It took a few tried before he got it.

'Yes,' he said, staring openly at the Templars and looking green. 'Because... we have to do things tomorrow. Important things. I don't really know what they are, but I can tell you they are completely vital.'

'Ugh,' said Isabela, following his gaze. 'Can't they find their own seedy dive?'

'In their defense, they have taste,' Varric pointed out. 'This is the best seedy dive.'

'They're not even supposed to drink,' Finn said, frowning. 'They do all the time though, the younger ones anyways. When I was a kid they used to stay up all night and play cards and-'

'Right,' Varric said loudly, interrupting his rant. 'You were going to bed.' He shot Ariane a significant look. 'Before your friend says anything stupid, maybe.'

'Bit late for that,' Isabela added sarcastically.

They know, Ariane realized vaguely. Not that Finn was being particularly subtle. She felt a sudden rush of gratitude. Knowing that there were at least two people who wouldn't turn them in was... unexpected. Affirming. Suddenly the outside world seemed a little less hostile.

She stood, then immediately sat back down. Maybe she had drunk too much. She rose more slowly this time, trying to ignore the way the floor seemed to be shifting under her feet.

'Farewell, interesting idiots,' Isabela called as Ariane led Finn away from the table. Ariane glanced back to say goodbye, but Isabela and Varric were already deep in conversation.

'I can't stand Templars,' Ariane said, gritting her teeth as she dragged Finn along. She balled her free hand into a fist. Stupid Templars. Coming in right when she was actually starting to understand the point of bars.

'That's discrimination,' Finn pointed out. 'You can't just hate a whole group.' The concept seemed to worry him intensely.

'I don't hate them as a group,' Ariane answered, eyeing the Templars at the door. 'I hate each and every one individually. That's not discrimination, its dedication.' She wondered if she could take them. Probably. They didn't look all that tough under the plate mail and the helmets and the swords. As soon as the room stopped spinning, she would be ready to attack.

Her planning was thrown off by a loud crashing noise. Finn stood in front of the dripping barmaid he had just knocked into, one hand covering his expression of open-mouthed horror. 'Sorry... I... Where did you even come from?'

The barmaid rolled her eyes. 'I'll clean it up!' Finn promised her earnestly. He grabbed the wet tray from her hands, getting even more beer on himself in the process. The barmaid's expression shifted from irritation to alarm.

'I'll get it in a minute,' Ariane said sternly, taking the tray out of his hands. She had no idea how to get ale out of floorboards. A young man in the clans who had come to them from a life in one of the dodgier bars in Denerim had explained it to her once, she was certain. Was bleach involved, or was that just for blood?

'Don't worry, love.' Ariane jumped. The younger, elven bartender had come over and was looking at her with bemusement. He clamped one hand on the shoulder of the barmaid. 'Rosie here will clear it up, won't she?' Rosie scowled hideously back at him.

Ariane looked back at the man blankly. He pulled the tray out of her clenched fingers with a gentle yank. 'S'pose you ought to get him to bed.' He indicated Finn, who had become fascinated by a large crack in the wall, and was swaying gently from side to side. 'Maybe come see me after, yeah? I'll make you something special.' He winked at her, then turned and strode back towards the bar. After a moments delay, Ariane realized she had been flirted with. She felt her face get hot.

'Come on,' she said, grabbing Finn's arm. She had meant to lead him, but found herself leaning on him just to stay steady.

'Where are we going? I was looking at...'

'Yes?' she asked, thinking suspiciously of Isabela's well-displayed cleavage.

'...the wall. D'you know, I think all this stone used to be carved into designs? I wonder how old it is?'

'Right.' Ariane fumbled in her pockets for her room key. Her hands felt strangely far away.

Finn frowned at the doors which lined the hallway. 'Which room was ours?'

'Four,' Ariane said, triumphantly locating the key. 'Or maybe six. It was a blue number.'

'Blue?' Finn looked even more confused. He examined the numerals on the doors. 'None of these are blue. I don't think.'

'Numbers always seem to have colours to me. Four and six are blue numbers,' she informed him with drunken certainty. 'Those are the best.' She had learned numbers by counting coloured beads, rather than by looking at figures in a book, and they still retained the colours the beads had had then. Maybe that was weird. She felt herself blush even deeper.

Finn considered this information for a moment. 'What about five?'

'Orange.' The key fit in door six. 'I never liked orange. And then Banic lost the beads so we had to use red.' The door opened with an audible creak. Ariane sank onto the bed with relief and started pulling off her shoes. Whether or not they went with the dress, they were pinching her feet.

Finn shut the door. He seemed slightly at a loss for what to do with himself. 'Is that your husband? Banic?'

Ariane nodded. She wondered what Banic would think if he could see her now. Actually, he would probably have been drunk too. 'We say bonded, not married. But it's basically the same, I think.'

'You never told me his name.'

'You didn't ask.' But she hadn't volunteered, she realized guiltily. She had talked about the rest of her family, but not him.

'You can sit down,' she added, realizing he was still standing. 'I swear I'll get off your bed in a minute. It's just... really, really comfortable.' She felt like she was sinking into a cloud.

'You can have it,' Finn offered gallantly, sitting down heavily beside her.

She shook her head. 'I like the floor. Feels more like outside.'

Now that she was stationary, the room seemed to have stopped spinning. She leaned against Finn's shoulder. His shirt was still wet and smelled like ale, but he was warm and solid.

'What was he like?' Finn sounded very far away.

She closed her eyes and tried to think of how to answer. 'Good. Funny, but never mean. You remind me of him a bit.' She tried to picture Banic, but all of her memories seemed worn-out somehow, like carvings that had been rubbed smooth by too many hands. 'I miss him.' As soon as she said the words she realized how true they were. 'It's been years, but...'

Her explanation sounded inadequate to her ears, but Finn seemed to accept it. That or he was too distracted to hear. He looked like his thoughts were miles away.

'What about you?' she asked, suddenly feeling guilty for being so serious. The beer had made her maudlin.

He started. 'Me? What do you mean?'

'I mean.' She tried to remember what she had meant. 'Did you ever meet anyone?' There, that sounded alright.

'Oh.' He looked relieved, but also somewhat embarrassed. 'Well, you know. Tower. It wasn't easy. Not that that stopped most people,' he added with a frown. 'There was this one supply cupboard you just never opened without knocking. '

Ariane nodded. 'I know what you mean. It's the same in the clan.' She paused. 'Wait. Not with the supply cupboard. Although there was this one thicket. But I know what you mean. People think of me as a widow or a little girl or practically family.' She missed Banic like mad. No one would ever fill the same place in her life that he had. But somehow, she wished that, once in a while, everyone could forget everything they knew about her. 'Out here people think of me as just an elf.' She didn't like being ignored, but at least it was a change from being pitied.

'Not everyone,' Finn objected. 'Not Varric or Isabela or the Warden. Or me.' The string of names came out jumbled together.

'Why, how do you think of me?'

'Incessantly,' he mumbled, then covered his mouth, looking horrified.

'What?'

'I meant the bartender!' Finn's voice was strangely high-pitched. 'Was thinking of you. Apparently.'

He had noticed. Ariane felt oddly elated.

'And yes,' he continued, looking slightly unfocused, 'it sounds the same. The Templars just thought of us as mages.' He frowned. 'Not that I'd want a templar to think of me as a... That's just... Yuck.'

'What about the other mages?'

He looked embarrassed. 'They didn't like me so much.'

She shook her head. The movement made her dizzy all over again. 'No. Not acceptable. You're much too handsome.' It was true, too. He was much too tall and his tiny flat ears were silly, but his face was open and friendly, and his bright hazel eyes were very large for a human's. How had it taken her this long to notice?

She shook her head again. 'I refuse to believe you never met anyone.'

'Well, there was this one girl,' he admitted, his pale face flushing. 'Dagna. She wasn't a mage though, she was a scholar. Brilliant historian.'

From Finn that was a high compliment. 'Sounds serious.'

'Nah. Might have been, I think, but her family called her home as soon as things started getting bad. Managed to reverse her casteless status and everything.' He shrugged, looking sad. 'I tried writing, but...'

Ariane found, to her intense embarrassment, she was actually jealous of this dwarven girl she had never met. It wasn't over Finn, she told herself half-heartedly. It must be because the girl had left. Orzammar was even more removed from the war than the clans. And it was so much easier to leave than to be left behind.

Somehow, though, now that she was out in the world she had a hard time imagining leaving it forever. 'I guess that's one thing that's better about being out here,' she said aloud. 'Not being cut off.'

'That and beer. Apparently everyone's been onto something this whole time.'

'I know!' she exclaimed. 'I will be issuing a formal apology to bars on behalf of the clans.' She wasn't totally certain she could walk in a straight line, but why would she need to when the bed was so unbelievably comfortable?

'My hands feel fuzzy,' said Finn dreamily, examining his palms. 'I hardly feel scared for my life at all anymore.'

'I'll protect you.'

'Assuming you can stand up.'

'I am not drunk!' she protested. 'I'm just resting.' She leaned her head against his shoulder again, letting her hair fall over her face. It was a strange experience being close to someone like this. Finn was someone usually she thought of in terms of his words and thoughts. It was odd to think of him as a physical presence.

'I'm going to miss you,' she said. Her fantasy of going home to her family was still comforting, but imagining never seeing Finn again made her feel unbelievably sad.

'Wait,' he said, frowning. 'Where am I going? What happened to protecting me? I feel like we gave up on that notion awfully fast.'

His hair was hanging into his eyes, so she reached up and straightened it. She had a sudden urge to touch his face. The beer in her system seemed to encourage the idea, so she cupped her hand around his cheek. She half-expected him to jump like he usually did when she touched him, but instead he held her hand against his face and smiled sleepily.

I like him, she realized, as a tingling rush spread up her spine. Way more than was appropriate for a friend. More than she'd liked anyone in a long time.

Once the idea was in her mind it seemed to expand until she couldn't think of anything else. How had that snuck up on her? There were people she'd found attractive since Banic - that part of herself was hard to shut off, no matter what people said about grieving widows. And Finn was attractive, definitely.

But besides that... she just liked him. He was sweet and resourceful, and funny when he wasn't trying too hard. He was completely different from her, but somehow she found that appealing too. She liked the idea that someone she had nothing in common with could be good.

She realized she'd been silent for a long time, and sat up straighter, reflexively trying to fix her frizzy hair. She needed to say something now, or she'd never manage it later.

Squaring her shoulders, she summoned all her conviction. 'I have a question. But it's weird,' she warned. How the hell would she phrase this?

'Would you ever...' she started slowly.

'Wait. I have a question first.' Finn sat up straight and held her by the shoulders, facing him. Then he seemed to realize what he was doing and let go with a look of embarrassment. 'Okay.' He swiped nervously at his hair, undoing her attempts to keep it out of his face.

'Um... you know when there's a phrase you can't figure out in a book? Or a song and you can't remember the lyrics?' He was talking extremely fast. 'And it gets stuck in your head, and every time you try to think of something else you know it's always going to be there bothering you until you know what it was, even if it isn't what you were hoping. So you end up all distracted and you can't focus and you get a headache.'

Ariane frowned. She had the sudden feeling that they were having completely separate conversations.

'You... have a song stuck in your head?' she ventured.

'No. Forget the song.' He looked extremely agitated. 'This question isn't really working, to be honest.'

'You could just tell me what the point is.'

'Maker, can't you tell?' He blushed again and laughed uncomfortably, suddenly fascinated by the wall.

Suddenly, she could.

'Please don't make me say it,' he went on, as it slowly dawned on her that they actually had been having the same conversation all along. 'It's embarrassing.' He dropped his gaze to the floor and laughed again. It sounded forced. 'Forget that. What were you going to say?'

Ariane's head was swimming. Something seemed to be expanding in her chest. It took her a moment to realize it was happiness.

Finn was still studiously avoiding eye contact, and she had no idea what she had been about to say. Instead, she just said the first thing that came into her head.

'Would it be alright if I kissed you?'

'Really..?' Finn's eyes widened like someone had just given him an electric shock. Ariane felt her heart sink. Stupid. Now she'd ruined it.

Then he nodded. 'Okay.'

Quickly, before she could lose her nerve, she pressed her mouth against his. After a moment, she drew away, confused. 'You're not kissing me back.'

'I wasn't sure if I was allowed to,' he said doubtfully.

She tried not to smile, but she couldn't help it. Thankfully, he smiled too. It lit up his face. 'Try again?' she asked.

He kissed her this time, harder than she had expected. They were both a little clumsy, but the heady rush of excitement was enough to outweigh the awkwardness.

There was something strange about having a face she knew so well this close to hers. She searched vaguely for a comparison for context, but the thing about first kisses was that they were each their own thing. Something new. Kissing Finn was at the same time foreign and natural. Like something she already knew how to do.

This is probably a bad idea, she realized vaguely as she fumbled with the fastening of his clothes. Drunken declarations were alright, but it was just stupid to get into anything serious.

Somehow though, when she slid her hands up his shirt and he brushed her hair aside to kiss her neck, sense didn't seem as important anymore. She's been sensible for a long time. Surely she'd earned the right to be stupid for once.


	23. Chapter 23

'Hangover' was a deceptive word, Ariane thought, lying dead awake in bed. It sounded almost pleasant, like some kind of rock formation. If it had been up to her, she would have chosen 'terrible awful dirty great headache'. She believed in honesty in advertising.

Finn didn't seem to be having the same problem.

She couldn't complain, really. He'd been a wonderful lover. He obviously hadn't had any idea what he was doing, but he'd been sweet and attentive, and she was pretty sure she would have enjoyed it even without the alcohol.

Afterwards, he had mumbled something incoherent into her neck. It had sounded like 'olive blue'.

Or 'I love you'. That made more sense.

Thinking the words sent a shiver of nameless panic down her spine. She liked the nonsense better.

Finn yawned and looped his arm over her. It rested on her back, heavy and hot. Ariane rolled away onto her side. The peaceful sleepiness the beer had provided had faded. Instead, a dull, grinding headache was setting in, like someone was trying to dig a mineshaft in her cranium.

She rolled over again, looking for a cool spot on the bed. This seemed to upset the miners. Her head throbbed. Her mouth was dry, and her teeth felt weirdly fuzzy.

'Um. Are you...'

'I'm fine,' she said, without moving her head. She didn't want to make her headache worse. More than that, though, she didn't want to look at Finn. 'I just don't like sleeping on beds.'

'Listen,' he started. His nervous voice made Ariane flinch. 'Um, I just wanted to say... that was a lot faster than I meant.' He paused. 'Wait. That sounded bad. Not like... not the actual experience, just... I really care about you, okay? And I want to do... whatever you want.'

Ariane's stomach lurched. Half of her wanted to turn around, kiss him again, and say that she wanted to stay with him forever. The other half wanted to make a break for it.

She opened her mouth, realizing she didn't have any idea what was about to come out.

'I'm really sorry,' she heard herself saying. 'I think I made a mistake.'

'Really?' His voice was very small.

She didn't turn around. She was sure if she saw his face she wouldn't be able to go through with it. 'I think... I'm going to sleep on the floor.' She braced herself, waiting for an angry response.

'Okay. Sure.'

Of course he wasn't going to yell. She wished he would. If he could just give her anything, something to make her feel justified this would be so much easier.

She took the thinner of the two blankets and slid down onto the floor, not bothering to find her clothes. The worn wooden floor was smooth and cool against her bare shoulder. It felt like a natural place to sleep. So why did the idea of falling asleep seem so improbable?

I'm doing the right thing, she told herself. I've made a mistake and I've apologized. This was no time to be getting distracted by reckless romance, not when there was so much danger.

That was the problem, wasn't it? It just wasn't responsible to invest in anything right now. Not that she was scared, but it wouldn't be fair. Building up his expectations wasn't fair. Something could happen to her, and then where would he be?

Or something could happen to him. That was more likely. And then she would be alone again.

Not that she was scared.

Ariane rolled over angrily. Why had she even let herself get into this situation? Her head felt three times larger than usual. She considered stealing one of the few remaining healing potions from her pack, but it was across the room; insurmountably far away in her condition.

Banic would be ashamed of her, she told herself. Even if he had been gone six years, she still loved him. There shouldn't be room for anyone else. She had told him so, before he died. He had been incoherent when they found him, and unconscious when she saw him, but she had talked to him anyways. Sometimes she dreamed that he had spoken back.

Her chest felt hollow. Probably the hangover, she told herself. She wasn't sure if she could blame the hangover for the stinging in her eyes, but she could try.

If she could just ask someone what to do, things would be alright. She didn't make decisions for herself, she made them for her clan. That was why she was here in the first place.

She still felt like crap.

Burying her head, she started chewing her thumbnail again. It was already bitten down to the quick, and the cuticle was ragged and bloody. She knew halfheartedly that she should stop, but compared to most of her options for reacting to stress it seemed kind of minor. Compared to sleeping with someone she barely knew, for example.

But then... Maybe she didn't know Finn all that well, but she wanted to. She wanted to be able to spend time with him without any running, or Warden or stress.

That could never happen though. They were too different, and the world was too dangerous. Plus, she had just been horrible to him, and she wasn't sure if she could fix that.

And yet... somehow she still wanted to try.

Finally, she stood up, letting the blanket fall to the floor. Her pulse was thudding, in time with her headache. Fervently she wished she could speak as well as the Warden, or even just as well as a normal person. She sat down, very carefully, on the edge of the bed.

'Hey,' she whispered.

He waved at her, still lying flat on his back. 'Hi.' His eyes were closed, but his cheeks were flushed and she wondered if he'd been crying. She was too nervous to cry.

She tried to think of how to phrase her apology. Finally she gave up. 'I'm a bitch.'

'What?' He opened his eyes and frowned. 'No, you're not.'

'Yes, I am.' She took a deep breath. 'I'm really sorry. I really care about you too.' Once she started it was cathartic. She felt like some kind of pressure was being lifted from her chest. 'Everything's so strange right now.' She started a nonchalant shrug, and then caught herself. Her shoulders sagged. No faking.

'I got scared.' That one hurt. Like ripping of a bandage. She was scared as hell, for her clan and herself, and now for Finn too.

She pulled her knees up to her chest. He was just watching her, not saying anything. There was something else she should say, she was sure, but her words seemed caught in her throat. 'Can I stay here?'

He looked blankly at her, and her heart plummeted. Then he nodded, slowly, looking bewildered. 'Yeah. Sure. Course.' He bit his lip. 'You hurt my feelings though,' he added, in a much smaller voice.

'I'm really sorry,' she said. Her chest flooded with relief and she exhaled, releasing the breath she hadn't noticed she'd been holding. 'I owe you one.'

'It's okay.'

It wasn't okay, though. It was awkward as hell. Carefully she slid under the blanket, trying not to disturb anything. He rolled over to make room for her, and she relaxed, pressing her forehead against your shoulder. 'Hey, you're dressed,' she noted, fingering the cloth of his sleeve. 'Not fair.'

He frowned and she half-expected him to apologize. 'Deal with it,' he mumbled instead. The corner of his mouth twitched, and she smiled back nervously. Then she realized the comment was out of character enough to be funny, and she laughed properly and, thank the gods, so did he, and she snuggled her head down and suddenly realized she was unbelievably tired. Saying what she actually felt was more work than she had anticipated. From where she was lying though, it was definitely worth it.

The house looked so much like those around it that Ariane almost walked by it. It was larger than she had expected, but its size somehow made it look colder and more derelict than if it had been small. The walls were made of pale, crumbling brick, and a narrow staircase of sun-faded wood formed a rickety path to the raised front porch. Stray tiles had slid from the haphazardly sloped roof, and broken pieces of clay littered the cobbles. The windows and door were boarded up.

Ariane shivered slightly in the chilly air. Around her, a few people went about their daily business. Most of them were elves. Here in the Alienage she was receiving fewer odd looks than she had anywhere else in Kirkwall, but somehow the idea that she blended in didn't comfort her. This house blended in, too. Its malicious history was somehow worse for its innocent appearance.

Dog sniffed the ground in front of the blood mage's old home suspiciously. He nosed a broken roof tile until it flipped over, then jumped when the brittle clay shattered. Ariane almost jumped too. She knew that the Eluvian inside was a relic of her own people. She should be thrilled by the prospect of seeing it. Somehow, though, it seemed like an intrusion, a stark sign of a world she could never be part of or understand. Magic made her nervous.

The girl who had lived here had lived in that world as well as this one, though. Finn did too. Another thing they'd never share.

As she had many times before, Ariane fervently tried to conjure up an image of the world after the Warden returned. The details felt almost like a prayer now. No more civil war, the Dalish left alone, their Keeper restored. It calmed her down, as it always did, but there was something artificial about it. It felt like a carving that had had so many hands run over it that the detail was lost, or a story told so many times that no words could be changed for fear of losing the audience. Comforting and familiar, but somehow missing in depth.

Water discolouration had seeped into the rough stone walls of the empty shack. The darkened patches vaguely resembled a face, grinning lopsidedly at her. She glared back at it. Even the house was laughing. Dog looked up at her, forehead creased in worry.

'It's okay,' she reassured him. 'I'll protect you from the evil house.'

Dog didn't look reassured. Something behind her caught his eye. He growled softly, hackles rising.

Ariane froze. It took an amazing amount of effort not to turn around to respond to the threat. Slowly, casually, she strolled around towards the other side of the street.

A voice spoke out from behind her. 'Is that a Mabari?'

Her hand went automatically to her hip, where no sword was hanging. Rigidly, she turned around, looking for the closest escape route.

A lone Templar was behind her, looking down at Dog curiously. Fully armoured, and nowhere near as sword-impaired as Ariane. His greatsword was still on his back though. Ariane tried to calculate if she could get the dagger out of her boot before he could draw it.

She realized he was still waiting for an answer. 'Yes,' she answered, keeping her eyes locked on his face, watching for a sign he might attack. 'Ser,' she added as an afterthought. She dropped her eyes. Servants didn't look knights in the eye.

'You're Fereldan?'

She nodded mutely.

'So am I,' he said, lowering his voice slightly, as though embarrassed. 'My sister had a Mabari. Don't see them much around here.' He shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, as though he had lost his train of thought. He was younger than Ariane had first realized, perhaps Finn's age, with short black hair that stuck up in unruly spikes. His face was slightly gaunt, with dark circles under his wide blue eyes. Not as ill as Ser Rowan had looked, but not healthy. Maybe withdrawal would slow him down.

'Can I say hello?' he asked, making her jump.

'You'll have to ask him,' she answered. Dog had stopped growling, but he was standing protectively in front of Ariane, teeth slightly bared.

Awkwardly, the Templar dropped to one knee and extended a gauntleted hand, palm upwards. Dog stepped forward cautiously, teeth still exposed. He sniffed the Templar's hand suspiciously. Finally, slowly, he pushed his nose into the man's hand. The Templar bit back a happy grin. Ariane felt a sudden twinge of endearment. She pushed it back in horror. These were their enemies.

'I really have to-'

'Yes. Of course.' The Templar stopped stroking Dog's head and stood, looking embarrassed. 'Carry on.'

He strode off passed her. Ariane watched him out of the corner of her eye until she was certain he was gone. Only when he had rounded the corner did she allow herself to exhale.

'What the hell was that?' she asked Dog sharply, crossing her arms. He yawned. 'You're not supposed to talk to them!'

They walked in silence back towards the Hanged Man. Her head felt chaotic and crowded. Her mind was filled by a vivid mental image of her clan's First, who was little more than a child, meeting the edge of the young Templar's greatsword. Then the same image, only this time it was Finn. How was she supposed to protect them both?

Dog whined in contrition. She sighed.

'I didn't mean to yell.' He still looked hurt. Ariane leaned against a wooden fence, exhausted now that the adrenaline was gone. 'I suppose your real owner never yelled.' The rooftops were looking unpleasantly unfamiliar again. Being lost seemed to have become a regular part of life.

The Mabari sat down beside her, still looking wounded. He pawed at the ground, stirring up the dust in the road. Ariane stuck a fingernail in her mouth.

'Now, don't let on, but I'm a bit stuck.' He looked up at her, panting. Talking to Dog was more therapeutic than talking to anyone else. He always listened and never interrupted.

'I'm worried about... everything.' She slumped against the fence. 'Too many people need worrying about. My worries have worries.'

She half-wished she had never left home. Things would be so much easier if she didn't care about the outside world. Or anyone in it. 'I guess your real owner never worried like this either.' Dog let out something that sounded suspiciously like a derisive snort. 'So, what do I do?'

The question had been rhetorical. Dog, however, apparently didn't catch that. With a low-pitched bark, he bolted off down an alley. With a jolt of alarm, she sprinted after him. 'Dog? Dog! Come back here!' She came out onto a narrow street just in time to see the Mabari round a corner. 'Get back here immediately, you traitor!' A few passersby stared as she sped past.

Finally, she slid to a halt. Dog had led her to a back street lower down in the city than she had been so far. The tall buildings blocked out the afternoon sun and cast long shadows over the derelict streets. There was no one in sight.

'What the hell was that about?' she demanded. Dog ignored her. He was digging furiously in the dust where several cobbles had been pulled up. 'I thought I'd lost you!' Another thing she couldn't bear to lose. They were far too many in number for her comfort.

Dog's black toenails scraped on something that wasn't dirt. He raised his head and barked. Slowly, she examined the hole he'd dug. Wooden planks were poking through the dust, stained dark from being covered. Curiosity took over. She kneeled and started digging with her hands.

Slowly, a trapdoor emerged. Its iron lock had rusted away to nothing, and when she pulled on the handle, it lifted with a groan of old hinges. Below was darkness.

'What is it?' she asked Dog. As her eyes adjusted, she saw a worn stone staircase. Beyond it appeared to be some kind of tunnel, roughly hewn into the bedrock of Kirkwall. 'Where does it lead?'

* * *

Hi! Sorry for the delay in posting... My computer has started making a noise like a motorbike and overheating when I turn it on, it's rather alarming. I took a crack at repairing it myself but have been forced to admit defeat (it's just too old). Next week I will hopefully have a new computer, and be able to resume my usual update schedule.

Due to scary noises from inside my laptop I edited this chapter much faster than I normally do, so if you see any typos or mistakes, please let me know!


	24. Chapter 24

'Smuggler's tunnels!'

Ariane leaned against the door of their room, arms folded. Finn pushed his hair back from his forehead, smearing ink on his face in the process. He had been compiling everything he knew about Kirkwall and its relationship to the Fade. The owner of the Hanged Man had several books set up as a decorative display in the hallway. Among the (mostly pornographic) novels had been an extremely dry account of Kirkwall's past. Finn had almost fainted with joy. A real history book.

The place turned out to have a long and rather baffling history. Between the Tevinters, the Templars and the renegade mages, everyone seemed to have had a cause to smuggle lyrium inside the city walls.

'Kirkwall's supposed to have a network of tunnels under it,' he explained. 'Originally they were escape routes or part of the quarry system, but they were mostly used by criminals. Or so I read, anyways.'

'So that tunnel leads outside the city.'

'Probably.' Finn shrugged and stretched his arms. The bed was strewn with papers and books. 'I wonder why he thought we'd need it, though. Getting in was complicated enough. I'd rather not do it again.'

While he spoke, he silently thanked Dog. Knowing that there was a backup route out of the city was a comfort. That way, if things went wrong – that is, more wrong than he was already anticipating – at least Ariane would be able to get out safely.

Ariane had left that morning accompanied by a map based on Varric's directions. While she had scouted out the alienage, Finn had tried to recall anything and everything he knew that pertained to mages who had made deals with demons. The results were not encouraging.

Demons were liars. This he was certain of. No matter how many layers of trickery and flattery went into it, Mouse was lying to him. Both history and religion seemed to agree that by treating with a demon, Finn had forfeited his safety and quite possibly his life.

Oddly, realizing this had been a calming revelation. There was something so final about the idea of dying. No more waiting and staying quiet while things he had no control over changed his life.

Ariane would find the Warden. That was certain as well. She knew what she was doing, and she would have Dog there to help her. The Warden could return, the world could be at peace, and Ariane could go home to her family. Best of all, he would be past worrying.

He tried not to think of what the actual experience of dying would be like. Death might not frighten him, but the prospect of pain made a lump of panic stick in his throat. Hopefully it would be quick.

Being possessed would be more problematic. Once Mouse had access to a human body, the demon could try to kill Ariane or Dog to stop them from finding the Warden. Or just out of spite. Demons were not known for being reasonable.

He would have to be sure that Ariane was the first one through the Eluvian, and that she knew what to do once she was in the Fade. Possession wasn't immediate. Finn had seen enough of them in the Circle to know that. Even the unfortunate stray cat that lived in the Tower had taken a while to succumb to a demon. Finn wasn't optimistic about his chances, but as a point of pride he was determined to last at least as long as Mister Whiskers had. As long as Ariane was fast, things would be fine.

'Maybe he doesn't think we should stay,' said Ariane with a shrug. 'I always knew he was smarter than us.' She sounded wistful.

Let's leave, he almost said. This city is loud and creepy and if it's all the same, I don't want to die. Let's just go.

Instead he shrugged. 'Come too far now, I guess.'

'Yes. Too far now.' She closed her eyes. 'And it's worth it. It's worth anything.'

'Yeah.' The words fixed in his head, driving out some of the fear. She was worth anything. The rest of the world was just a pleasant bonus.

'So, tonight?' She looked at him anxiously. 'We'll go tonight?'

'Suppose so.' Dread settled back over him like a blanket. Tonight was slightly more concrete than he was comfortable with.

She sat down beside him, sweeping some of his papers out of the way. One fluttered to the floor and he rescued it. 'We can do this,' she said, resting a hand on his arm. 'Don't worry.' She smiled reassuringly, then started gnawing her thumbnail.

'Yes. You don't worry either, okay?' He took her hand carefully out of her mouth and gripped it tightly.

She rested her head against his shoulder. 'We have a while left then.'

'Oh, yeah?' He tried to shake the wrinkled out of the page in his hand, frowning at it. 'I should look at these again. Some of the inscriptions are a bit more detailed than I thought and I want to- What?' Ariane was laughing.

'Nothing.' She grinned and buried her face in his shoulder. 'Let me try that again. I'm out of practice.'

She sat up and pushed her hair back, then leaned over and kissed him. He held his breath, in case moving would make her disappear. This was too surreal to be trusted. Then she slid her hand under his shirt and he kissed her back, winding her hair around his fingers.

'We have a while left, then,' she said, when they stopped for breath. She tilted her head to the side. 'Was that better? I'm working on the seductive thing.' Her pale face was flushed.

'I...' He managed to stop himself from saying what he actually wanted to. 'Thank you. It was very convincing.' He kissed her neck and she sighed.

' How long a while?'

'Not sure.'

'Better make the most of it, then.'

'Andruil,' he said, much later, lying in bed. Ariane was lying on her stomach, half asleep. Finn couldn't sleep though. He traced his finger along the blood writing on Ariane's bare back, where the elegant lines formed the symbol of the Dalish Hunt goddess. 'And these are the Vir Tanadahl?'

'Mmhm,' she said, without lifting her head. Her hair lay in a tangled mass on the pillow, but she didn't seem to care.

'This is an arrow,' he said, finding the straight lines indicating one of the Three Paths, 'so Vir Assan.' A tangle of tattooed leaves covered her left shoulder blade. 'And these are Vir Adahlen. A forest.'

He frowned slightly at a long, curved stroke he didn't recognize. 'This one...'

'Vir Bor'assan,' she mumbled sleepily. 'The Way of the Bow. 'In yielding, find resilience.''

He rolled over onto his side. 'I knew I was forgetting one.'

She smiled without opening her eyes. 'I forget that one sometimes too.'

'Is this Andruil as well?' he asked, running his hand along her arm. The markings were different enough to be noticeable, but shared common themes.

Ariane raised her head to look. 'Her sister. Andruil taught us the ways of the hunter, and Sylaise gave us fire and healing.' She looked at him curiously. 'Why?'

He needed to memorize her, he almost said. These few hours were something he needed to remember properly if he died. He had committed every detail of the room to memory, but when he closed his eyes he couldn't get Ariane quite right. She never looked as good as in real life.

'They're beautiful,' he said instead.

'We all have them,' she said dismissively, but her pale cheeks flushed slightly.

'Yeah, but they look best on you.' The symbols had been pretty in textbooks, but they were greatly improved by being on Ariane. Then again, most things would look better on her.

She kissed him, more slowly than before. Her calloused hand felt rough on the back of his neck, but her mouth was soft. 'We should just leave,' she mused, burying her face in her neck. 'We could run off into the woods. I'll hunt for us, and you can... write the comprehensive guide to the elven pantheon.'

'We could live in a cave. A nice one, mind, with ventilation, and without bears.' On second thought, maybe he wouldn't like a cave so much. Maybe it would be better if Ariane were there.

'Bears aren't so bad,' she objected. 'Maybe we can train the bears to hunt Templars.'

Finn didn't want to hunt anyone. Besides, the bears were intruding on the nice fantasy. 'Well, if any Templars come by we can offer them some tea and send them on their way. It will be a nonviolent cave.'

'We could eat apples and those wonderful shemlan cookies, and have all the sex we want and raise weird half-and-half children.' Her slanted green eyes were half-closed, and she looked like she was falling asleep again.

Children. He hadn't even really thought of that. Ariane's children. 'They'll have to get most of their genetics from you. I'd only muck up the mix.' Mages had children, sometimes, and the idea was pleasant, in a nervous-making sort of way. 'It sounds nice, though.'

He wanted to say that she should do it anyways, even if he died. His genes might be better removed from the pool, but Ariane should be able to have children if she wanted them.

She sighed, pressing her forehead against his bare shoulder. 'Maybe after we find the Warden.'

He closed his eyes too. 'Maybe.'

The first thing Finn realized when he woke up was that he was alone. Consciousness crept back into his limbs, followed by panic. Had something happened to Ariane? Had she been taken away by guards, or eaten by demons, or just got sick of him like everyone else?

He sat bolt upright, and Ariane frowned at him from the corner of the room where she was pulling on her boots. 'You were sleeping well for once,' she said, looking concerned. 'I was going to let you sleep a little more.'

Immediately he felt silly. Stop being paranoid, he told himself. There are enough real things to be afraid of. No one needs you to invent any.

He started looking around for his clothes, which seemed to have wound up on the floor. Not being dressed was fine when Ariane wasn't either, but embarrassing when she was. One more thing he never would have known if he hadn't suddenly had a love life. He wondered how many more were left that he'd never find out.

Ariane had already packed up most of their things. A weirdly optimistic gesture, Finn realized, considering they had no idea where the mirror would lead them. Then again, if she wound up trapped in another dimension, maybe having a flint would actually help.

'I know where we're going,' she said, apropos of nothing.

'That's good.' She was nervous, he realized. The muscles in her jaw were tense, and she wasn't blinking.

Once he was dressed, Ariane tossed something large at him. He reflexively ducked, and his staff smacked him on the shoulder and clattered to the floor. He winced and picked it up.

'Sorry, Vera.' The staff was looking a little worse for wear. The dark wood was scuffed, and a chip had come out of the brass covering at the bottom.

Ariane's tense face softened slightly. 'Why Vera?'

'Dunno. Mirabelle was taken?' He hefted it experimentally. The wood felt warm and reassuring in his hand. It had been a long time since he had held a staff. 'Isn't someone going to notice? She doesn't look much like a walking stick.'

'Maybe.' Ariane stuck a pinky in her mouth. For once, he didn't bother to stop her. 'Would it be better to leave it behind?'

Finn paused, considering. 'No,' he decided finally. 'This is my very favourite staff.' He would rather die with Vera near him.

'We'll be quiet, then.'

It was cold outside. Finn's breath steamed in the air as he went to the ramshackle outbuilding which used to serve as stables. They had gone out their room's narrow window. Considering the raucous noise coming from inside the Hanged Man, they needn't have bothered. Everyone in there would have been too drunk to notice.

Dog was waiting inside, looking dejected. He lifted his large head when he saw them and barked happily. Ariane lifted a palm and the Mabari fell silent. The wagging in its tail ceased.

'We're going to a mirror,' Ariane told it quietly. 'Do you remember the mirror last time?'

Dog whined in response, tucking his tail between his legs.

Me too, Finn thought. I know exactly what you mean.

Ariane turned and strode out into the street. Only the stiff set of her shoulders suggested that she might be nervous. Finn started to follow, but Dog caught the leg of his pants in his teeth.

'Don't,' he objected. Dog looked up at him with accusing brown eyes. 'I know what I'm doing,' Finn told him.

'What's that?' Ariane asked.

'Nothing. Which way?' The streets looked like a maze. A dense fog had set in, drenching everything in cold white mist.

Ariane squinted in the dark. 'Um...' She pointed at one of the streets. 'This one.'

The trip was both excruciatingly long and terrifyingly short. Finn followed Ariane around the first few corners in a daze, until he realized that this might well be his last chance to walk anywhere. Not that he had ever walked anywhere by choice, but it seemed monumental.

He resolved to pay more attention, and by doing so was reminded why he never walked anywhere. Kirkwall was even more frightening by dark. Gargoyles which had looked interesting by day were menacing at night. The wind had picked up and seemed to be magnified by the narrow streets, whipping into a gale and then vanishing altogether.

Finn spent so much time paying careful attention to the walls and the wind and the dark that he missed the house in front of them. When Ariane stopped in that unexpectedly sudden way which seemed common to elves, he walked straight into her.

'Ow.'

She frowned and held a finger to her lips.

'Sorry,' he whispered in apology. The house was right there. It was... well, a lot like the other houses on the street. Kind of nondescript, really.

It was bigger than he had expected, and its walls ran into the walls and balconies of all the houses that surrounded it in the way he was slowly learning was normal for dodgy areas in cities. The windows were boarded up and dark, but it didn't look that much worse than most of the buildings he'd seen. It actually looked better than the house next to it. At least it had most of its roof.

It had a door as well, though. Not a huge heavy door that heroes burst through; a small, rickety wooden door with a flimsy metal lock. But it was a door, and that implied that they would have to go through the door and there would be an Eluvian on the other side.

Finn stared at it, hoping it would fade out like a monster when you were just starting to realize you were having a nightmare.

The house went right on having a door at him. Maybe this was a punishment for things he had wanted coming true – everything he was afraid of had to be true as well.

'Door, I'd say.'

'Huh?' Why was Ariane suddenly a mind-reader?

'I was thinking door, not window.' She had moved on from biting her fingernails to chewing on her knuckle. An alarming development. Finn had a sudden fear that she was going to bite off her finger. 'Door, we can say we had the address wrong. Window, the best we could be is thieves.'

'Yes.' That made sense. He looked around, suddenly remembering that they were in danger out here as well. The street was deserted. There was no guarantee it would stay that way, though.

Ariane approached the door. She didn't seem to be bothering to look casual; her shoulders were bunched and her pace was quick and purposeful. Finn lagged behind. His stomach felt like lead.

I should say something, he realized, as Ariane tried the doorknob. Not the truth, that he thought he was about to die and the idea terrified him. He should say something good, something Ariane would remember. The Warden was good at speeches. But whatever was building in his throat was wordless, and he was sure it wouldn't be anything he wanted her to hear.

'Damn,' she muttered, pushing down hard on the lock. The rusty metal whined, but the door stayed firmly shut.

Dog growled suddenly, a low warning sound. Finn looked frantically around, but couldn't see anything. The shabby courtyard looked as empty as ever.

The Mabari was still baring his teeth though, ears flattened. He growled again. Finn realized there was another sound as well – footsteps.

'Ariane-'

'I hear.' Her voice was cool, but her face was pale and sweaty. With a grunt of exertion, she twisted the handle with all her strength.

It snapped off.

'Damn it!'

Light had appeared down the street the way they had come, and Finn could hear lowered voices as well. Regular citizens, or a Templar patrol?

Ariane closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. Then she slammed her hip into the door.

The old wood creaked and cracked. She braced herself and shoved it again. It splintered, dark lines forming.

With a sharp intake of breath, she forced her shoulder against it. The door smashed open with a thud.

Ariane overbalanced and stumbled into the house. Dog leapt after her, and Finn was left staring at the stone threshold. His feet didn't seem to want to move.

Ariane waved her hand urgently, ushering him in. The footsteps outside grew louder. Finn's heart rate jumped and instinctively he lunged inside the house and shut the broken door behind him.

That wasn't so bad, he told himself, willing his hands to stop shaking. Now we're inside. If you don't think about it, it's not so bad. Just... don't think. About anything.

The house smelled like an old basement, mildewy and damp. It was dark, and as his eyes adjusted Finn's impression was of a sort of wooden cave. The floor and walls were made up of the same rough wooden boards. The ceiling was surprisingly high, making the large main room they were in appear cavernous. A pitch-black hallway stretched away to the left. No furniture. It must have been removed by the Seekers.

'Damn.' Ariane was examining her shoulder. With a wince, she extracted a wooden splinter from a gap in her mail. The jagged piece of wood was several inches long and dripping blood. 'I thought that would be easier.'

'I could-'

She waved him away. 'It's nothing.' Looking around, she shrugged and started for the hallway, apparently unconcerned by the dark.

Don't think, Finn reminded himself, following her. His feet had felt like rocks before; now he didn't feel like he had any feet at all. He found himself trying to imagine the girl who had lived here. A Dalish girl who had somehow ended up a blood mage living in a slum. Why would she have given up her family? No one would choose to live here, would they?

She was probably dead now, he realized. Maybe a fugitive. Probably dead. This is a dead woman's house.

Not empty, though. Far from that.

As he walked down the hall, he could feel the Eluvian, like a thin cloth settling around his shoulders. A slight weight to the air.

He had built up so much anticipation that when he actually saw the Eluvian, it was almost a disappointment. It was tall, taller than he was, and imposing, with an intricately carved wooden frame. It cast long shadows on the wooden floor.

The surface though was... just flat. Not reflective, not a portal to another world. Blank.

Knowing what it was, he wanted it to have some kind of personality, some implicit intent or will of its own. The broken mirror had been a relic of a lost people. Morrigan's had been a mystery, power she had shaped to her will. This one was missing something. He had thought that he would be able to tell what the owner had wanted with it, but it just looked like a thing. A tool.

Maybe it wasn't the dead woman's Eluvian after all. Maybe it was his.

Ariane was watching him, and he realized he'd been looking at it longer than he had thought. It was hard to look at, but harder to stop.

'Are you...'

'Yes. Yes. Right.' He started rummaging for his notes, then decided not to bother. He had them memorized by now anyways.

Dog leaned over to sniff the Eluvian, then backed away, growling. Finn closed his eyes and tried to focus. Tentatively, he reached out with his mind to the mirror. Listening this way, the air around the Eluvian seemed to hum. It sounded almost like it was breathing.

'Are you ready?' Ariane asked from behind him, voice lowered.

Absolutely not. 'Yes.'

There weren't any incantations or words to this spell, just a series of mental patterns and thoughts. The difficult part was how much power was involved. As Finn tried to keep the spell in his head, the humming from the mirror grew to a dull roar. It seemed to be coming up from the floor, rattling his bones and making his teeth ache. Pressure built in his ears, as though he was falling.

_Are you ready?_

Mouse. Already waiting. How long had the demon been watching him?

He wasn't ready, anyways. He was terrified.

'How much do you need?' Finn's voice was drowned out by the howl of the Eluvian. Ariane wouldn't be able to hear the noise, he reminded himself, but what difference did that make now?

_Enough._

It really didn't matter what Mouse had said, did it? He was going to die here. The only thing he could hope for was that it would work.

'I'm ready.' The words seemed to come out of their own volition. They vanished into the din. Closing his eyes tighter, he braced himself for whatever would happen next.

_It is done._

The sound of the Eluvian stopped dead. The room was suddenly silent.

'What?' Somehow he was still standing. How was that possible? Had Mouse actually kept his end of the bargain? He exhaled, slowly. 'But I'm not...' He was shaking, he realized. At first it had been from fear. Now it was relief, more than he could bear to admit. He was alive. Things were alright.

'Finn?' Ariane asked from behind him. Her voice sounded far away, and very young.

The relief died away, replaced by dread.

Finn opened his eyes. The Eluvian was silver-grey now, casting an unearthly light over the rough interior of the house. Its surface flickered and swirled like smoke.

Ariane was standing with her left arm out slightly, as if to stay balanced. Her right hand was pressed to her side. Blood was seeping out from between her fingers, dripping down her side onto the floor. The front of her armour was soaked red. 'What's... ?' She swayed and stumbled forward.

'No. That's not right.' Part of Finn's mind screamed to go steady her, but his legs didn't seem to be responding any more. 'This isn't real.' His fingers clenched uselessly. Any moment he would wake up, and be back in the Circle, or his parent's house, or anywhere but here, and all of this would be gone.

The events of the last few weeks had been pushing rationality after all. Mostly the part where Ariane actually liked him. Besides, she wasn't a mage. Demons were drawn to mages. Ariane was normal. She was supposed to be safe.

He bit down hard on his cheek and his mouth filled with blood. It tasted of iron. Ariane swayed again, and sank to her knees. Blood was dripping out her nose and mouth now, and her usually bright eyes had gone dull and glassy. The room smelled metallic and heavy. Too real.

The shock that had frozen Finn's legs dissipated, and his knees buckled. He crawled over to Ariane, who was struggling to stand up. Finally she sank back down, head lolling forwards. Blood started seeping into the cracks between the floorboards.

Dalish blood, a voice whispered in his mind. His voice or the demon's? This was Ariane's blood. _Blood like the offerings of the old masters. _That was what Mouse had asked for.

Stupid. He was so stupid. Ariane's blood was a lot closer to what the ancient elves could have given than his was. Worth so much more.

Automatically he took over the job of applying pressure to her side. Blood leaked between his fingers, and he fought back a wave of nausea. 'I...' His mouth was too dry. He swallowed and tried again. 'I'm going to fix you, okay? Just wait. You'll be okay.'

She didn't answer. His ears were humming again. Was it the Eluvian? He didn't care anymore. The Eluvian and the Warden and the whole world were not as important as she was. He'd made a mistake. He'd hurt her. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

'You're going to be fine,' he repeated, shaking her. If he could keep her awake, he could make things better, and that was all that mattered. 'I'm going to fix you.'

Ariane blinked at him, and he smiled shakily.

She blinked again, slowly, and then smiled back widely. It was a strange, wolfish expression, not one of her natural smiles. Something unpleasant slithered behind her eyes.

Instinctively, Finn let go of her and backed away. The buzzing in his ears was louder now, like his mind had been replaced with bees. The blind panic which had possessed him was replaced by cold dread.

Ariane sat up, looked around, seemingly forgetting the pool of her own blood on the floor. Her eyes flicked much too fast, and her usual grace was missing. Her movements were strangely jerky and quick.

'You'll fix me,' the thing which was not Ariane said, with another toothy grin. Its voice was monotone and flat. 'How considerate.'

'No, no, no, no, no...'

'I'm not thrilled either,' Mouse said with Ariane's mouth. Blood bubbled over its lower lip and the demon spat it on the ground.

'I mean, it's better than you,' Mouse continued, examining Ariane's blood writing critically, 'but really. An elf?' It raised a hand to its pointed ears and grimaced.

'Stop looking at her!' Mouse grinned again, amused. Finn tried to remember the exact phrasing of Mouse's offer. There had to be a way out, a loophole, something... 'You said... you lied.'

'I did not.' Mouse put its hand on its hip, indignant.

He hadn't really lied, had he? Finn just hadn't listened right. 'You can have me. Instead. Leave her alone.'

'Absolutely not,' the demon said shortly. 'I don't want you.' It gestured at the Eluvian. 'Besides, you have work to do. Your Warden awaits.'

'I can't.' Dog was whining, head lowered to the blood on the floor in confusion. Mouse stood, slowly, wincing in pain. Finn instinctively took her hand to help her up, then jerked backwards when he remembered whose hand it was now. Her skin was sticky and cold. 'Please.' He tried to hold the demons gaze, then dropped his eyes to the floor. His vision was swimming.

His eyes lighted on Vera, forgotten on the floor. He seized the staff. 'I'll kill you,' he told Mouse, voice cracking. Mouse looked back at him, one eyebrow raised in amusement. 'I will,' Finn insisted, wishing he sounded more convincing. He didn't know if he could kill Mouse, but a fight would end with at least one of them dead. At least one of the people responsible would be gone.

Mouse smiled again, then its expression suddenly changed. Its eyelids drooped, and the smile fell off its face, replaced with bewildered panic. 'Finn?' The voice was different. Frightened, and confused, and real. Ariane's voice. 'What the hell is –'

'Ariane!' The staff dropped out of his hands and clattered to the floor. Ariane closed her eyes again, and shook her head as if to clear it. 'Ariane?'

'For a little while.' Mouse shrugged, yanking Ariane's hair from its face. Its movements seemed slower, as if letting Ariane control her own body for a moment had disoriented it. 'She won't last long. Oh, don't cry,' the demon added exasperatedly, as the tears which had been welling up in Finn's eyes started streaming down his face. 'You mortals are so leaky. '

'Sorry.' Finn wiped his nose clumsily. 'Sorry.' He didn't know who he was apologizing to anymore. It didn't seem to matter. He opened his mouth to argue, and a sob came out instead.

Mouse sighed and scratched its head. 'You have a real chance, here.' Its flat voice resonated strangely, as if there were an echo. It sounded even stranger when its tone was sincere.

The demon rested its hand on Finn's arm, making him flinch. 'I meant it when I said I liked you,' Mouse told him quietly. 'Go.'

Then, with inhuman strength, the demon clamped its fingers around his shoulder and shoved him through the Eluvian, into the fog beyond.

* * *

Thank you for reading! I apologize for the very long (and not very thoroughly edited) chapter. I seem to have a gift for only being interested in laptops which are not in stock, so my computer access is still pretty limited. Again, if anyone spots any typos or mistakes (or just really bad phrasing) please let me know!

On the other hand, I finally managed to fit in a Firefly line, so there's that :)


	25. Chapter 25

The world lurched nauseatingly, and reality seemed to splinter like shards of glass. Then there was a rush of cool air, and then darkness.

When the world had righted itself, it was definitely not the world Finn had just been in. He had been in the Fade twice before, enough to recognize it. During his Harrowing it had been small and contained, like an arena. Then when the sloth demon had attacked the Circle during the Blight, the Fade had twisted and changed to suit the nightmares of those trapped in it.

This time though, it was strangely purposeless. Blank. As if it knew it was transitory.

The ground was made of packed grey dust, and more grime choked the air. Outcroppings of stone peaked seemingly at random on the flat plain. A dull light illuminated the landscape, although no source was visible.

In front of him, though, was a light. It was small and bright, and shone like a pale blue star. Beyond it was another, and then another, forming a path through the endless haze. Finn was suddenly reminded of the Lights of Arlathan, guiding the Warden and Ariane and himself through the underground ruins. It had been seven years ago, or was it eight now? It felt longer. Like it had happened to someone else.

Mouse had promised him a pathway to the Warden. He had kept his promise. All of his promises. Finn just hadn't listened right.

The portal was still open behind him. His first instinct was to go back through it, to go get Ariane. She wasn't there, though. It was just a monster in her body, and he was the one who had put it there.

The lights grew brighter, pulsing slightly as though inviting him to follow. Was the Warden really there? At the end of the lights, waiting to fix everything like a forgiving parent? Finn instinctively took a step forward, then halted.

It didn't matter whether the Warden was there or not. No one could fix his mistake.

His face was still wet with tears. The grit in the air was sticking to his clothes, mixing with Ariane's blood. He wiped his eyes with the back of his dirty sleeve.

There was something on the ground, he realized vaguely, as the wind picked up. Markings of some sort in the soft dirt. He knelt down.

Footprints. Smaller than his, and smaller than a demons would surely be. Someone else was here.

Ariane wasn't in her body. She had to be somewhere though, because she had reappeared for that brief moment, when he had threatened the demon. She had to be somewhere, and maybe – just maybe – she was here.

Finn stood slowly. Something was tingling in his fingers and his jaw, clearing his head. It took a moment to recognize it as hope.

The lights were there, stretching off into the distance. At the end might be another world, or a demon trick, or the real Warden waiting to be found.

The footprints led off towards the left, out into the emptiness of the Fade. Finn started walking. The lights vanished behind him, and he picked up his pace.

* * *

Ariane took a deep breath and tried to assess her surroundings. She was sitting down, which was good. Her legs felt like they were made of grass.

She could remember being at the mirror. That was a start. She was at the mirror in Kirkwall and then something had happened. A sudden pain, like a needle pressing into her skull. She had tried to cry out, but her mouth hadn't answered. Then, there had been blackness, and a sickening drop in the pit of her stomach.

For a moment, she had felt like she was back. Ariane frowned and tried to remember. She had been in the house in Kirkwall again, but dizzy and sick, and…

Blood. There had been blood everywhere. And Finn and been there, more frightened and angry than she had ever seen him. There had been a moment, one awful moment where she had realized what had happened to her, and what was pushing her out of her body and into the blackness. Then she had fallen again, and now she was here.

In front of her was... nothing. Flat grey fog. She narrowed her eyes, and a dreary landscape came into focus. It was a flat plain, filled with dark uncertain shapes. A throbbing pain set in behind her eyes, and she focused on the sky instead. It was a mass of shifting clouds.

To her right was more of the same. And to her right, standing awkwardly a few meters away, was Finn.

She smiled sleepily. 'Hey.'

He raised his hand halfway, as though about to wave, then let it fall to his side. 'Hi.'

'Is this the Fade?' She gestured at the swirling fog. 'I never thought I'd see it.'

'Well, you have.' He seemed to be having trouble raising his head. 'When you dream. This is the unaffected form, though.'

She squinted into the mist. It was dull and grimy looking. The rock formations twisted unnaturally, and in the distance were tall black spires that could have been buildings or mountains. The air was thick with dust and the weight of age. Voices whispered at the edge of her hearing, but when she tried to make out the words they fell silent.

Her dreams were definitely better than this.

'Not all it's cracked up to be, is it?'

'Enh.' He shrugged. 'Not really.'

She tried to focus on him, but it was strangely hard. He looked terrible, which at least made sense. If the way she felt was any indicator, she probably looked worse. She felt solid though, whereas Finn looked strangely undefined. Like his outlines were uncertain.

'You're not real, are you?' she asked, mind clearing suddenly. 'You're much too shiny.' He had the same indistinct blurriness as the rest of the Fade. 'I've died and I'm dreaming about you.' Vaguely she wondered why dream-Finn looked like such a wreck. Why couldn't she have dreamed about one of their better times together? The Fade was proving to be inconsiderate as well as monochrome.

'What?' He looked appalled at the idea. 'No! I'm real. I came through the mirror and I heard you and...' His eyes widened as something dawned on him. 'Oh hell. I didn't even think of that. Are you not real? I made you up, didn't I. Bloody typical Fade. Stupid fluidly responsive- what?'

Ariane hadn't even realized she was smiling. 'You're you.' She closed her eyes to consider the possibilities. 'Are you dead? I will absolutely murder you if you are.'

'No.' He frowned. 'I don't think so. I went through the mirror.'

'Really?' The mirror had been flat and blank when she had seen it. And then she hadn't seen much of anything, and now all she could see was the Fade. It was hard to imagine it leading anywhere. It also hurt to think Finn had left her there, dead or not. She wouldn't have left him.

'Well. You sort of shoved me.' He swallowed hard. 'Or not you, I guess.'

'I'm not dead yet, then.' Or her body wasn't. Since she wasn't in it, it was hard to say what she qualified as. Was hearing a demon was running around in her body an improvement on having bled to death?

'I...' He swallowed again, and the blurry light of the Fade flickered. 'Sorry. I'm so sorry. I thought it would be me.' He clamped his eyes shut, as though waiting for a blow.

Ariane scowled. 'Then I really would have been angry.'

Finn raised his eyes to look at her in confusion. 'You mean you're not angry now?'

'Completely livid.'

'Oh.' He sat down heavily next to her. 'Yeah. That makes a lot more sense.'

'That was just...' She inhaled slowly, trying to choose which grievance to air first. There was the part where he'd tried to outthink a spirit, generally known by all to be a terrible idea. Then there was the fact that he'd risked her life, and Dog's, in the process. Worse was the thought that he'd assumed the result would be his own death, not thinking about how his martyrdom would affect his family or his friends. Or her.

The biggest thing though, the one that made her stomach feel sick and empty when she thought about it, was that he hadn't trusted her. 'Why didn't you tell me?' she asked, trying and failing to keep her voice steady.

'I thought...' His voice trailed off. 'I don't know. I'm so sorry.'

Ariane sighed, pulling up her knees. 'I'm more pissed at the other one though.' If she was dying, she didn't want to spend her last few minutes fighting. 'And you look like you've got yelling at you covered,' she added.

'Yes.' He nodded fervently, looking pale and miserable. 'Trust me. '

He fell silent, and Ariane rested her chin on her knees. The Fade wasn't cold, but something about it made her feel as though she should be shivering. She cast around for something to focus on, finally giving up and watching the empty air. No sky here. Ariane had prepared herself for the idea of dying long ago. She had guarded against carelessness, and kept herself aware of every danger she understood. She hadn't expected to die like this.

'Say something,' she said finally, when she couldn't stand the silence any more.

'I don't think I like this Eluvian as much as the other one.'

Ariane blinked, then smiled crookedly. 'Opening ancient interdimensional portals. One more thing that looked way easier when Cousland did it.'

The Warden would have come through here, she realized. On his journey, with his true love; the journey she had invented and embellished in her head as a picture of what heroes did. It sounded so stupid now. 'He's dead, isn't he?' Her voice broke, and her eyes started to sting. 'We were never going to find him.'

Tears started spilling over onto her cheeks. Finn tentatively put a hand on her arm and she buried her face in his shoulder. 'Hey, hey,' he whispered, stroking her hair. 'Shh.'

She inhaled slowly, closing her eyes. It was no use being angry with the Warden. He hadn't asked her to look for him. 'He was just a person.'

'I guess so. Like us.'

Ariane opened her eyes halfway, then closed them again when the grey sky of the Fade lurched sideways. 'Stop moving!' She opened her eyes again, and the fog pulsed and swirled. 'I am so sick of all this magic bullshit! No offence,' she added to Finn, who was looking even guiltier. 'Can I just stab something? Please? And not you,' she interrupted before he could volunteer, 'something I actually hate.'

She paused, chewing her fingernail thoughtfully. The... _thing_ in her body was what humans would call a demon. The Dalish thought of all spirits as the same, but both societies agreed on where they came from. 'Hey, demons live in the Fade, right?'

'Yes. Right.' Finn nodded slowly. Some colour came back into his face. 'When they're not in people's bodies.'

'So it could still be here.' Ariane tested the hilt of her longsword. It felt real enough. Hitting something before she died for good would... well, if not improve matters, at least make her feel better.

Finn was ignoring her, looking at something far away. 'There was a little boy.' He looped one of her braids around and around his finger, chewing his lip. 'At the Tower.'

'I'm guessing there were several.' Gently she untangled his hand from her hair. It was starting to pull.

'No, I mean... He had been possessed. He was the Arl of Redcliffe's son. Then he wasn't. Possessed, he was still the Arl of Redcliffe's son. Although I guess he lost the title, since he was a mage.' Finn much more animated now, if a lot less sensible. Ariane wasn't sure if it was an improvement.

'But he was okay,' Finn went on without stopping for air. 'Because they killed the demon in the Fade. Like in a Harrowing. '

Killing a demon in the Fade sounded good. 'Harrowing?' Ariane asked.

Finn shrugged. 'Sort of a test. We're not allowed to talk about it.' He paused, then blushed. 'I guess that's kind of a null point now, isn't it? They make you fight a demon in the Fade. That's where I met...' His voice trailed off.

Ariane closed her eyes and tried to remember what she had seen before blacking out. All she could think of was darkness, and a sensation of falling. Or being pushed. 'What is it?'

'Pride demon.' Finn avoided her gaze, dropping his eyes to the ground. 'Mouse.'

First name terms? She didn't like that. She could stand the idea of Finn doing something rash, but this kind of premeditated lying was harder to get her head around. She tried to focus on her new enemy instead. Whether they were different than Fade spirits or not, Ariane knew demons varied in power and ability. 'Are they hard to kill?'

Finn nodded gloomily, and she sighed. 'Well, it's not as if I have any consequences for losing.'

'That's what I was trying to say.' Finn sat up straighter, fidgeting with his sleeves. 'I think maybe... if we kill it...'

Understanding dawned on her. 'I could get my body back.' Ariane stood up abruptly, ignoring the wave of dizziness that flooded her head. She looked around. Somewhere in this landscape was the thing which had stolen her life from her. And she wasn't done with her life yet. Setting her jaw, she started walking.

'Wait!' She turned. Finn had stood up, and was watching her leave. Something crumpled in her heart, and she had to struggle to keep her face still. Was he going to try to stop her?

He pointed back the way he'd come, down an identical grey cliff. 'I think it's that way.'

Slowly, she smiled, and started walking. He followed.

* * *

'So what do you want to do after this?'

'Huh?' Finn started, stumbling over a rock. She estimated they'd been walking through the Fade for about twenty minutes, although it was impossible to tell from the light. Sometimes Ariane thought she saw the sun, glowing from behind the fog with a strange, heavy yellow light. Every now and then outcroppings of rocks glowed blue, as if shot with luminescent veins. The scenery all looked the same to her, but Finn seemed to know where he was going.

Now she was starting to feel a strange pressure in her ears, as though she were underwater. They were close.

'After we've killed the demon,' Ariane explained. Her boots had turned grey with dirt. It was thick and flaked away like ash. Her eyes itched and her throat felt gummy. Maybe talking would help.

Finn smiled, slowly. 'Oh, you mean the heroic aftermath bit.'

Ariane hefted her short sword, feeling the balance. 'I know we were going to save the world with the power of friendship,' she said, frowning at the blade, 'but I thought maybe we could take a break first. Catch up a bit.'

Although she tried to keep her tone light, her throat contracted involuntarily. This could easily be the last conversation they had. Two nights ago she had been wondering how the hell she had thought it was a good idea to sleep with Finn. Now she was wondering she had only slept with him twice. Why had she wasted so much time being scared?

'Should walk the dog,' Finn pointed out.

'Need to do laundry too,' Ariane said, wrinkling her nose at the dirt that streaked her armour. 'How do you think demons react to swords?'

Finn seemed to consider the question. 'Much the same as everyone else, I'd guess. I think most things are allergic to swords.'

The blade on her short sword was chipped. She remembered chipping it – she had missed a blow at a stray darkspawn and wound up hitting a boulder. The swords didn't just look like hers, they were hers. 'If this is the Fade, how are these here?'

'You assumed they would be.'

So her whole body was just a construction. 'Hells. Wish I'd assumed myself three feet taller too.' Mentally she ran through their combat abilities. Did they even have anything that could defeat a demon? 'Can I actually see you cast a fireball now?'

'Um. I think they're resistant to fire,' Finn said, looking guilty. 'I could do one anyways, though. If you want.'

Ariane winced. 'Resistant? Crap. Better not, then.'

The air was humming now, and her ears were ringing. Something was starting to come into focus, a grey smear against the blank horizon. As she walked, the smear solidified into a shape. A lone figure, standing in a clearing surrounded by boulders. The pounding in her head suddenly made sense. The demon.

Quickly, she leaned over and pressed her mouth against Finn's. He flinched, then slowly relaxed and put his arms around her. She sighed and kissed him again, running her hand through his hair.

When she pulled away, he was looking at her in bewilderment. 'Why?'

'I wasn't sure if I'd get another shot.'

* * *

The demon was not what Ariane had expected. It looked human, to begin with. She knew demons could disguise themselves, but she had never pictured them human. The demon was male, tall but slender. It was dressed in neat mage's robes and had a pleasant, unassuming face.

'You've gone the wrong way.' It didn't sound malicious. It looked mildly confused, as though she were a small child who had wandered into the wrong tent. For some reason this infuriated Ariane more. Monsters were meant to look like monsters. Too many wore innocent faces already. This one could have the decency to look like what she already knew it was.

'Everything important was back here,' Finn croaked. Somehow now that they had found the demon Finn looked even worse. His eyes were glazed and a manic edge had come into his voice. Under his long sleeves, her hands were balled into fists.

The demon looked briefly confused. Its eyes lighted on her and its expression shifted to surprise. 'You're still up and about, then? You're tougher than you look.'

At least someone had finally noticed her. She didn't bother answering. Instead, she drew her swords, testing the grip in her hands. They certainly felt like her real swords. She must have done a good job imagining them. Maybe if she lived she could be an imaginary weaponsmith.

The demon watched her impassively. 'That's a poor plan.'

Ariane ignored it. The swords felt all right, but her head still hurt terribly. She was glad to know she was still tied to her body, but the ensuing knifelike pain behind her eyes was very inconvenient. This would have to be over quickly. She would never last through a long fight.

'Really,' the demon said, lowering its voice condescendingly. 'You'll only upset your-'

She saw her chance and charged. As fast as she could, she brought her longsword up to meet the demon's arm. The steel bit into his sleeve and sunk into the flesh of his left arm. Thick, blackish blood oozed slowly from the tear in the fabric.

In her moment of exultation, she didn't even see the demon move. His backhand slammed into her like a wall. She felt her nose crunch as the demon's hand connected with her face, sending her sprawling backwards onto the gravel. Something tore in her shoulder as it connected with the hard ground. Before she could cry out, her head hit the stone with a crack.

Blackness filled her vision, followed by dancing spots of colour. Her side burned as if on fire, sending waves of pain through her body. That didn't make sense, though. The demon hadn't hit her on that side. She pushed against the ground with her palms.

Not ground, floor. Wooden floor. She could feel splinters digging into her hands.

Her eyes felt sealed shut. Slowly, painfully, she forced them open. Dog stared back at her. His teeth were bared.

'Hey,' she croaked. Her mouth felt like sandpaper. She tried to push herself up, but the floor was slick with blood. Her blood.

Dog watched her warily. Behind him, she could see the Eluvian crackling with energy. Its pale light flickered over the drab wooden walls. She was back in the blood mage's house in Kirkwall. Back in her own body.

'It's me, boy,' she rasped. Her mouth tasted of bile and tin. He sniffed her sticky red hand suspiciously. Slowly, the mistrust in his brown eyes faded.

The world lurched. Ariane's stomach churned as she pitched forwards into darkness. Was this what blood loss was supposed to feel like? She couldn't remember anything like this when she had been injured before.

A moment later she was on her back, staring at a swirling orange-grey sky. The pain in her side was almost gone, with only the memory of it remaining. Her head, on the other hand, hurt like a bitch.

'Ariane!' Finn was yelling. His hysterical voice sounded strangely far off. 'Are you okay? Don't die again!'

'Wasn't planning on it,' she answered. The sarcasm was slightly undermined by the tremor in her voice. She had been back in her body. She was sure of it. What had happened?

The demon was examining his arm. His silvery sleeve was stained black, and more fluid was dripping on the ground. 'That hurt,' he told Ariane, looking faintly put out. He cocked his head to the side thoughtfully. 'You're rather good to have done that without magic.'

Ariane pulled herself to her feet, ignoring the thudding pain in her shoulder. 'Is that even possible?' she called to Finn, who was looking aghast. 'I'm not in my body. How exactly can I still scrape my knees?' She watched the demon out of the corner of her eye as she adjusted her armour. He looked so slight, but obviously he was stronger than any normal person. Not he, she reminded herself, it.

Finn actually seemed to be seriously considering the question. 'I suppose it's the same reason you look like you think you do. But then why does it still hurt even after you acknowledge it's not real? I wish I could...' His voice trailed off.

Ariane hoisted her sword again. Her right side was a mass of pain. She wouldn't be able to get much force behind that blade, and considering her full strength had barely scratched this thing, she would need it.

'I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to accomplish,' the demon told her, sounding profoundly pessimistic. Behind it, Finn seemed to be trying to mouth something to her. It looked like 'please'. Ariane frowned.

'I mean,' the demon continued, 'imagine you could force me to leave. You're dying. What would you even do?' Behind it, Finn rubbed his arms theatrically, then appeared to mime being a statue.

It clicked. _Freeze_. Ariane casually sidled to the right. 'Dying or not, I'd still rather not share.' She just needed to get her good arm close to it. Just like with the bandits. Had it only been a few weeks ago?

'How narrow minded of you.'

It had very pale eyes, she noticed, paler than she had seen on any real human. They looked unnatural in its pleasant, forgettable face. The effect was somehow more sinister than if its whole appearance had been monstrous.

'You're Ariane,' it said appraisingly. 'I've heard a lot about you. That one,' it rolled its eyes at Finn, who had thankfully stopped miming signals at her, 'calls me Mouse.' It scanned her disapprovingly. 'How did things work out between you two? I am curious.'

She tried to ignore it. It doesn't want us working together, she reminded herself. The thought of Finn talking to a demon still made her head ache. Get through this, she told herself. Worry later.

'I'll admit, I'd pictured you a bit taller,' it went on. 'Especially since-'

Ariane felt the freeze spell before she saw it. Instinctively, she jerked her head back, away from the blast of biting cold. The demon roared in surprise and pain.

Frost stung her eyelids, making her eyelashes cling to each other. Through watering eyes she could see glittering ice coating Mouse's arm, freezing it mid-swing. Veins stood out black and frozen on the side of the creature's neck. Shifting her weight, Ariane slashed at the demon's side. Her head was still ringing but her mind felt wonderfully clear. Finally, something she understood.

At the last moment, she twisted her sword to the side. The flat of the blade struck the demon's shoulder with an echoing crack. Instantly, the demon's whole arm shattered into a thousand glittering fragments.

Her heart leapt with triumph. It took her a moment to realize that Mouse hadn't made a sound. It was examining the stump of its arm with an expression of offended disbelief. It looked up at her, and something unpleasant slithered behind its eyes.

'Really,' it said. Its shadow grew longer and longer, as the demon's small frame began to grow. 'This was never necessary.'

_Oh, gods_, Ariane thought. _What the hell did I just do?_

* * *

Update at last! Unfortunately, two days late and not very thoroughly edited. I have a new computer now but am still in the process of switching my files over, so this update may be rife with typos. If you spot any, please let me know!

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! It was the biggest response I've ever received and I really appreciated it. If anyone has any advice or suggestions, please feel free to tell me!

I had a bit of a hard time digging up a thorough version of how demonic possession works in the Codex, so I'm basing this on the bit with Connor in Dragon Age: Origins. I may have made some dire mistake somewhere, so if anyone can correct my canon please do :) It would be sad for the story, but informative and helpful for me.

Once again, thank you so much for reading!


	26. Chapter 26

It was very big. That was the first thing that registered. The demon's neck was thick and scaled, and its arms bulged and twisted with knotted muscle. Its horned head was broad and flat like a bull, but its eyes – those were still cold and intelligent, as it rose to its full height and flicked them over her.

Ariane braced herself against the ground, trying to decide what its weak point would be. The eyes? Too high up. The armoured skin of its chest and belly looked impossible to penetrate. The throat? Possibly, but again very high. Her vision lurched, making her stomach churn. Still bleeding to death, she reminded herself.

The demon raised one hand casually, as if examining its nails. Then, with blinding speed, it whipped its arm around.

Ariane ducked, but it hadn't been aiming for her. Its massive hand hit Finn in the shoulder.

The mage crumpled like a tissue.

'Finn!' Ariane yelled without thinking. The demon turned around and raised its hand again.

The blow had sent Finn flying, but she could see him sprawled in a cluster of jagged rocks. If she could just get around the demon…

A high, keening shriek filled her ears. The shadows in the fog seemed to sharpen, then solidify. They crawled over the rock formations, trailing black smoke behind them.

Shades, Ariane realized, feeling even more nauseous. She had seen them before, but never in these numbers.

'They like magic,' the demon told her. She could still hear its light human voice, but under it was a different one, like screaming hinges. She saw Finn, for a moment, pushing himself up with his staff. The Shades swarmed him like insects.

_You asked for this, _her mind whispered to her. Her feet felt nailed to the ground. _You knew that that getting attached was pointless. What did you think would happen? _

'He could have left,' the demon told her. It held out its claws, as if considering whether taking her head off would be too much effort. 'Perhaps he thought you would protect him.' It glanced at her. 'You still could.'

She needed to get around it. It was blocking her way.

She feinted left, then lunged right. The demon didn't even flinch. Its arm collided with her like a hammer, fist as heavy as if it were filled with iron. The air was driven out of her lungs and she choked, biting her tongue. Her mouth filled with blood.

She staggered backwards, wheezing, expecting another reprimand from the demon.

Instead it looked at its huge clawed hand with vague disinterest. Then it hit her again, with a backhand that made her shoulder crunch.

The force of the blow threw her sideways to the ground. She rolled sideways just as the demon's fist connected with the ground where her head had been. The indistinct grey terrain of the Fade cracked like porcelain where it hit.

Ariane pushed herself up into a crouch, trying to orient herself. Finn had been near some rocks, or whatever passed for rocks here. There were rocks behind her, but he was nowhere to be seen. For some reason, she thought of his parents. Keeping his empty room for him. Waiting for him to come back.

The demon turned, lazily, to face her. Its huge shoulders were loose and its eyes were cool. The stump where its left arm had been was still pumping blood sluggishly, but it didn't seem to feel any pain.

It's not even tired, she realized.

It smiled at her, showing jagged tusks. Its pale eyes flickered. She wondered how she could have ever thought it looked human, with eyes like that.

Her knuckles where white from gripping her swords. She deliberately loosened her grip, trying to calm her mind at the same time.

It didn't work. An image of her own mother wandered into her mind, grey hair escaping her braid as she bent over a piece of leather. She would be waiting, too.

The demon's shoulders bunched, and ducked an instant before its fist crashed into the rocks behind her. Seeing her chance, she swept her sword forward, catching her sword point under one of the plates of chitin on the demon's chest.

Dropping her short sword, she put both hands on the hilt and pushed up. Something gave, and a rush of black blood spurted out over her arms, smoking and stinging her hands. The demon roared in pain and fury.

She pulled with all her strength, but the sword was stuck inside the demon. Changing tactics, she released the longsword's hilt and reached for the shorter blade she'd dropped.

In the distance, she heard a chittering shriek, followed by a sound like a cannon blast. Almost like a spell.

'Finn?' she yelled, jerking her head up reflexively to look for him.

She realized her mistake almost instantly, but it was too late. In a single lurching motion, Mouse seized her shoulder and slammed her against the rocks, pinning her. Then, it brought its spiked knee crashing into her chest.

The world exploded into pain, and Ariane was on the wooden floor of Merril's home again. Blood and saliva dripped out of her mouth as she gasped for air, chest heaving.

Dog let out a volley of barks, then growled at her, hackles raised. She opened her mouth, then coughed, retching. His ears came forward, anger turning to worry.

'Me,' she croaked, when her throat was clear. The narrow room spun around her. Its dingy mess contrasted starkly to the blank expanse of the Fade. She reached out and tried to stroke Dog's ears. Her fingers left trails of sticky blood on his fur.

He licked her face, then paced back and forth in front of the Eluvian, keeping one eye on the mirror's flickering surface. Ariane closed her eyes and tried not to pass out again. As soon as she did, the demon would be back in her body.

Something occurred to her suddenly. The demon was powerful, but it seemed... distracted. Almost like being here and being in the Fade at the same time was too much. Or like, if enough were going on, it might be.

'Dog,' she whispered. 'Listen, boy. I need your help.'

He lowered his head close to hers and cocked it sideways, listening. She knew he could hear her, and she prayed he would be able to understand what he was about to say.

'I'm not going to be here too much longer.' The room was flickering, as though lit by a torch in the wind. The wooden floor beneath her feet had the ashy gravel smell of the Fade.

'When I'm gone, I'm going to count to thirty.' Did time pass the same way in the Fade? She hoped so. 'Then, I need you to bite me as hard as you can.'

Dog recoiled and let out a sharp growl. Ariane kept her eyes focused on his face. 'Come on. I know what I'm doing.' She wished her voice sounded a little more convincing. 'Trust me.'

'Trust you?' Mouse asked. 'To do what?' It's claws hand was on her shoulder, pinning her to the rocks. 'Wander off the second you leave home? Your dog can stay on task more than you can. Even your mage friend doesn't trust you. And he trusted me, so that must-'

Did all demons like the sound of their own voices this much? 'Please be quiet.' If it was going to kill her, she would rather it at least sounded like it was trying. She tried to wriggle free, but it was no use.

Mouse sighed. It leaned forward, and the pressure on Ariane shoulder made her bite back a scream. 'I am trying to talk you out of this,' it said. 'Why should this end in death?'

'You tell me,' she wheezed, forcing the last of the air from her lungs. There was a shade in the distance. It was running from something. Was Finn dead already?

Mouse caught her glance. It didn't smile, exactly, but it pulled the leathery skin back from its fangs far enough to show their serrated edges. 'You came here for a hero.'

'I found a big ugly demon instead.' It had been more than thirty seconds, she was sure. Had Dog not understood, or did time stretch here? That or she had been wrong, and her plan was useless.

'You found someone who can make things change.' It released her, just slightly. She gasped for air.

'Think about it,' it told her. 'I am powerful. Darkness is coming. You know what needs to be done to save your people. I can do all your Warden would have and more.' Its eyes were fixed on hers, magnetic. It exhaled, and its strangely sweet breath washed over her, making her cough. 'All I require is your cooper-'

_Bang._

The sound of an explosion ripped the air, breaking the spell of the demon's voice. Ariane jerked her head to look at the smoking crater where the running shade had been. One of its fellows bolted past it, only to burst into flames. Its shrieks split the air, making her ears hurt.

_Finn._ A laugh crept up her throat. She tried to stifle it, and it came out as a snort.'He told me he couldn't make things explode.'

The demon sighed, shaking its head. Then it twitched, suddenly, as though stung by an insect. It flinched again, then jerked its head back. A low growl escaped its jaws. Its claws tore free of Ariane's armour, and she stumbled back to her feet.

_Best dog ever, _she thought, wishing Dog could hear. If she wasn't in her body, it meant Mouse was, at least partially. And he could still be distracted by whatever happened to it.

She dodged sideways, circling the demon, trying to ignore the pain as she inhaled. Mouse swung at her, but his huge hand missed by inches. He was still fast, and his skin was far too thick in most places.

She studied it, doing her best to keep moving. There was a gap in its plated armour, right between its throat and its collarbone. If she timed it right…

Mouse lunged again, and she saw her chance. Darting forward, she slid her sword up and under the demon's heavy plates of bone, making it roar. At the same time, Arane felt her skin grow cold again. Mouse's breath began to steam, and ice crept up the side of its neck. The frost spread onto the steel blade, and the hilt grew so cold she almost dropped it.

Ariane pulled, but the sword was stuck. Finally she twisted, wrenching sideways and up into the demon's throat. Fissures spread through its frozen skin. She could feel the muscles in her arms tearing.

With a noise like a tree truck breaking, the demon's neck shattered into bloody ice.

Its body stood motionless for a moment, then slowly collapsed onto the rocks.

Ariane's knees gave out, and she fell, head spinning. The demon's head lay on the ground, looking at her speculatively.

'A pity,' it told her, jaws creaking as its flesh rotted away. 'I will not forget this.'

Then it was a bare skull, of yellowed bone, which dissolved into dust and blew away into the spinning sky.

Ariane closed her eyes. She could hear Finn's voice over the pounding in her ears. The words were indistinguishable, but the sound made her smile.

'We did it,' she said, not sure if the words ever reached her mouth. The pain was coming back, and the dizziness, but this time it didn't feel like falling into the dark. It felt like going home.

* * *

Yikes, two whole weeks since I updated! Turns out that posting regularly is a lot harder when it isn't summer. I'm amazed by the people that manage to stick to their schedule!

Since it's been a while and this story is almost done, I thought I'd post the last three chapters in one go. They aren't very well edited, so if you spot any errors, please tell me! Otherwise, thanks for reading and I really hope I haven't made any huge mistakes!


	27. Chapter 27

The swirling wind of the Fade picked up the smoke where the demon had been, whipping into thick grey tendrils. It took Finn a few moments to realize he was alone.

'Ariane..?' His voice was hoarse.

Shadows moved in the distance, just out of sight. '_Ariane_...' they whispered back. Or maybe it was just an echo. When he tried to focus they seemed to dissolve, but he could still feel their eyes. Through the fog he could see looming shapes, like great dull gold towers.

Ariane was gone, he realized. Pulled out of the Fade when the demon died. Her physical body was never here... but his was. 'Mirror. I have to find the mirror.'

'_Mirror,' _the echo agreed. It sounded closer.

Which way had he come? The trail was gone, along with Mouse. The rocks were gone too. The ground was flat and grey. Dust was falling now, like snow. Or maybe it was ash. It smelled acrid and made his throat hurt when he inhaled.

Suddenly, he saw it. A dull smudge against the flat fog. It was getting smaller.

'Hey, wait!' He stumbled towards the doorway, biting back a yell when he landed on his left foot. Gnawed by a Shade, he remembered vaguely. The fight blurred into a jumbled mess in his memory. Blood was dripping down his leg and onto his shoe. The sight made him feel nauseated.

He had to get back to Ariane, though. He'd promised.

He broke into a staggering run. Close, closer. Almost there. Why did the Ancients make their doors close so quickly? Were they just way smaller than he was? His leg felt like it was on fire. No time to fix it.

The door was the size of an arrow slit. Without slowing down, he forced his shoulder into it. He could feel the cool air on the other side, so different from the hot wind of the Fade. He tried to force himself through, but the doorway was still closing. It was crushing him.

Finn tried to yell, but the door was crushing his ribs, forcing all of the air out of his lungs. His staff was wedged against his arm._ I just fought a demon_, he thought._ I have parents who will be waiting for me. Ariane might – maybe – even not despise me. I am not getting killed by this hateful door._

With an almighty wrench, he twisted his shoulder forwards. His arm came free with a sickening pop. Blinding pain followed. He fell forwards, his head snapping back as a chunk of his hair got caught in the narrow gap. His knees buckled, and he yelped as his hair was torn out at the roots. He collapsed out onto the floor of the Dalish girl's house.

Eyes closed, Finn decided that he had underestimated the comfort of floors in his earlier assessment. Ariane actually seemed to be correct. The floor was a bit wet, but he could sleep there quite easily.

There was a muffled panting in his ear. He decided it could wait.

It was followed by a blast of warm dog breath. 'Don't,' he complained, pushing Dog's head away without opening his eyes.

Dog nudged his arm with his big head. The ensuing jolt of pain forced Finn to open his eyes.

His vision was blurry, but he could make out another person on the floor beside him. Ariane was apparently enjoying the comfort of this lovely floor too. Well, they both deserved it. They had killed a demon.

'We did it!' he croaked.

She didn't move.

'We did it,' he repeated, slightly louder. The fuzziness in his head was starting to clear. It was slowly replaced by panic. 'We...' He reached out one hand to shake her shoulder. It was smeared with blood.

Finn sat bolt upright. Simultaneously he registered the now-dark Eluvian, Ariane's dead-white face, and the cooling pool of blood that covered most of the floor where he had been lying. Blood from opening the doorway to the Fade. 'Ariane? Ariane?'

She was breathing, the healer-trained part of his mind noted. Barely breathing. 'Hey, wake up. Wake up!'

He shook her shoulder, probably not a maneuver recommended by any of the healers in the Circle. Her arm flopped uselessly to one side.

'Um. Um. Okay.' Next step was to assess the damage.

The damage was all over the floor, in a sticky red puddle. Dog nudged Ariane and whimpered.

Then was supposed to come a healing spell. Finn tried to raise his hand and was painfully reminded of his dislocated shoulder. Another wave of nausea and dizziness passed over him. He shook his head to clear it, but it just made the room spin even more. He could cast left-handed. He was pretty sure, anyways. He just needed to focus.

It wasn't easy, though. Blood made him feel sick, and his own state wasn't helping. He was exhausted from fighting the Shades, and didn't have his good arm working.

Worse than any of that was the sight of Ariane dying in front of him. Because of him.

'Focus.' He needed to remove the visual input. When he tried closing his eyes however, it just made it easier to see the mental image of what would happen if he couldn't save her.

Slowly the magic came, in a trickle instead of a surge. He felt a slight tingling, followed by a deep sensation of coolness in his hands and head that always accompanied a healing spell.

He exhaled for what felt like the first time in hours, and opened his eyes.

Ariane's deathly grey face greeted him. Blood was still slowly seeping from the wound in her side. The distinctly open wound.

Finn stared in dismay. What was taking so long? Slowly, he caught sight of the hand he'd used to cast the spell. The hand that was still bandaged from summoning Mouse on the boat.

'Fuck!'

Blood magic injuries didn't heal. He had always known that. Healing would negate the point of the blood sacrifice. The mirror had opened, so the sacrifice had been accepted.

So he had killed her.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck...' Frantcailly he dug through Ariane's bag, ignoring the clenching pain in his shoulder. She had a healing potion in here, she had offered it to him. There were two clanking against some tent poles at the bottom of the bag. He pulled one out and yanked the stopper out with his teeth.

Carefully, he poured some into her half-open mouth, silently praying. At the same time, his chest felt empty. Healing potions were made with the same magic as healing spells.

'Please work.' Some of the thick liquid dribbled out of Ariane's mouth onto her chin. 'Work, work, work...' Nothing.

'Stupid-!' In frustration, he threw the bottle at the wall. It clunked harmlessly onto the wooden floor.

Ariane still had potion on her face, and she would hate that. Finn carefully wiped it off wither her sleeve. He could feel her ragged breath against his hand.

'I'm sorry,' he whispered. 'I'm so suh-sorry and I... I...' His words turned into a sob.

Dog was trying to tell him something, he realized dully. He didn't care. Tears were streaming down his face, making his nose run. He would have expected himself to be disbelieving. Somehow though, the whole scene was too excruciatingly real. In stories, heroines could come back from elegant near-death with a kiss from a prince, but Ariane was sticky and red and cold, and the only person here was him. Another thing books had lied about.

The Mabari dropped the other potion onto the floor with a clatter. He nudged it towards Finn with his wide snout.

Finn pushed it away. Dog pushed it back. 'I don't want it,' Finn told him. Talking was difficult. Why would he bother fixing himself? There wasn't any point anymore.

Except that... Ariane wouldn't like him saying that. And neither would his parents.

The logical part of Finn's mind was still functioning somehow, as much as he wished he could shut it off. Assuming he could die without consequence was how he had ended up here in the first place.

Self-martyrdom wasn't the brand of pride he had been warned about. That didn't make it less selfish. He had promised her he'd at least try to escape. Dying now would be the easy way out.

That didn't make it any less appealing.

With a half-numb hand, he picked up the scratched glass vial. His right arm felt like it was made of wet paper. The potion was thick and gluey and made him gag, but he forced himself to swallow.

The effect was instantaneous. A blissful numbness spread though the slash on his leg. His arm popped back into its socket with a sharp stab of pain and an audible crack.

He had to get Ariane out of here. Templars could be here any minute. They would probably indulge his desire to be dead, at least, but they would take Ariane... her corpse, he corrected himself savagely, making himself think the word, for evidence. Burial rituals were important to the Dalish. He had to get her home.

She was still breathing though, barely. Moving her now when she'd lost this much blood was the worst thing he could possibly do.

Carefully he bound the wound with the last of their bandages. The bleeding slowed. Hadn't he read something once about non-magical medicine? Supposedly blood could be transferred from one person to another if they needed it.

His wouldn't work though, he remembered, feeling his hope drain away. It would have to be another elf, preferably a family member. She would never make it as far as the clans. He didn't even know where the clans were.

Time was passing and he was wasting it. Not his time, her time, and that was inexcusable. Dog was standing by the door, pacing back and forth impatiently. He lifted his nose and growled faintly at the sound of distant voices.

Carefully, he gathered her into his arms, trying not to jostle her. With her mail on she was surprisingly heavy. He couldn't manage their pack as well; they'd have to leave it behind. He took the last half-bottle of potion and strapped his staff to his back.

Tunnels. He'd promised he'd get to the smuggler tunnels. He had no idea where they were, but Dog seemed to know. He looped Ariane's limp arms around his neck and, with effort, hoisted her through the doorway.

The autumn air outside was wickedly cold, with a biting wind. Finn was relieved to feel Ariane's warm breath against his shoulder. Still alive.

He had no idea how to get to the tunnels, but Dog did. Finn followed, feeling strangely disconnected from his feet.

Mentally he listed non-magical medicinal cures. Stitches were no good, the problem was how much blood she'd lost. She needed fluids, and iron. No one to give a transfusion.

More blood magic might help. Except that he'd promised. Would she ever have to know, though?

But his demon was gone. And he had no time to find a new one. Besides, it wouldn't just be him who paid for it. He knew that now.

Something caught his foot and he pitched forwards. Instinctively, he threw out a hand to catch himself on the wall of the pitch-black alley. His recently relocated shoulder wrenched painfully. He was still upright, though.

Dog yanked on the cuff of his pants gently with his teeth. Finn struggled to clear his head. A handle. That was what he had tripped on.

That was a bit unusual though, wasn't it? Alleys didn't generally have handles.

One handed, Finn pulled on the handle of the trapdoor, balancing Ariane on the other arm. He pulled hard. It lifted a few inches.

'Stupid-'

Furiously, he kicked it. A resulting sharp pain in his foot suggested that that might be a bad idea. The rusty trapdoor seemed slightly less jammed though. A few more yanks, and its hinges loosened with a metallic screech.

Inside was pitch dark.

Dog lowered his head through the opening and looked around, his eyes gleaming in the dark. Then, he silently leapt down into the opening.

Finn sat down on the packed dirt and swung his legs into the hole. The dangled above the ground, however far down it was. Ariane was propped up beside him, still unconscious.

I would be appalled to see myself, he realized vaguely. I'm sitting in a dirty alley with my half-dead girlfriend, considering jumping into a dark tunnel. He felt like one of the Chantry examples of bad mages that the apprentices rolled their eyes about.

Dog barked from the tunnel below. With a rush of determination, he pushed himself into the doorway. The bottom dropped out of his stomach as he fell...

…and landed five feet below. Hardly a jolt. His head was still sticking out of the trapdoor. At least no one had been around to see it.

Light would be necessary. With a moment of concentration, he lit the end of his staff. At least that was still working.

The soft glow illuminated a narrow staircase, leading down into a rough-hewn stone tunnel. A salty breeze was coming from below. It go down to water level.

He pulled Ariane down with him as carefully as he could. Her head smacked against the rim of the trapdoor and she groaned.

'Sorry,' he whispered. She didn't answer. At least she was responsive, he told himself. That had to be good, right?

The tunnel was longer than he had expected, and narrowed as it went on. Dog led the way, sniffing the ground at every junction. Several times Finn thought he heard noises in the darkness, and Dog growled faintly when things shifted outside their light.

The breeze grew stronger, and carried with it the fishy smell of the docks. The reached a place where instead of rough stone, the walls were made of crumbling brick fortifications.

We must be passing under the wall, Finn realized. These were the foundations.

Dog lifted his head in sudden alert, then growled menacingly. Finn heard the footsteps moments later.

He turned to see a far-off light, warmer than his pale magical glow. A torch. And with it, the metallic sound of armoured boots hitting the stone floor.

Of course Templars patrol here, his mind whispered. They probably know every smuggling tunnel in the city. How else would they be getting lyrium in? Stupid. You were never going to get away.

The Templar rounded the corner and came into view. It was a man, too far away to make out his features. He was alone.

I could probably kill him, Finn realized. Just one isn't many. He was tired, but Dog was there.

But then what?

He would kill this man, and escape Kirkwall, and... what then? Go back to Amaranthine? Wait for Ariane to die? He couldn't help her. Maybe with the resources of the Tower, he could find a way to dispel the magic that stopped him from healing her, but not alone in a tunnel under a hostile city.

But...

But a Templar could.

It was a split-second decision. The man was leaving, walking down a tunnel in a different direction. He hadn't noticed them.

'Hello.' It came out a whisper. Finn's mouth was too dry. 'Hello!'

The Templar halted in his tracks, shoulders tense. Slowly he turned around. Finn waved his free arm in the air for attention. Since he had already decided to be arrested, looking stupid didn't seem like much of an issue anymore. 'Ser! Come here! I'm an apostate, p-please come here...'

'Apostate' seemed to be the keyword to getting any reaction. The Templar drew his greatsword and advanced. Finn did his best to show that his hands were empty, almost dropping Ariane in the process. His half-healed leg was shaking.

'How did you-' the Templar started.

Dog leapt in front of him, snarling. The Templar frowned in confusion. 'The Mabari again..?' He reached out a hand to Dog, then quickly withdrew it when the warhound snapped at his fingers.

'I need help,' croaked Finn. The Templar frowned, obviously sharing the assessment. 'Sorry, not me. She needs help.'

The other man's blue eyes widened as he noticed Ariane's blood-drenched clothes. 'Shit. What happened?' Finn could swear he saw a flash of recognition in the man's face.

'I...' Saying it was hard. 'It was an accident. It was my fault. Please. Help her.'

The Templar looked baffled. 'I can't. I'm not a healer.' He reached over to check her pulse. Ariane's head lolled to one side. 'Your friend is dying. I might have a...' He started digging around in his satchel.

Finns shook his head emphatically. 'It won't work.'

The other man looked even more lost.

'You're a Templar,' Finn explained, hoping he wouldn't have to say it outright. 'You can nullify magic.'

It clicked. The man stepped back, gripping the hilt of his sword more tightly. 'You're a blood mage.'

'No!' Finn objected automatically, before remembering with a sickening feeling that it wasn't true. 'Just once. I didn't know what else I could...'

'Maker, what did you even do?' The Templar eyed Ariane's blood-crusted side with fresh alarm. 'You attacked her?'

'No! I wouldn't. Ever. I was trying to help and it all went...' There wasn't any time to explain. Besides, it wasn't like he could justify himself anyways.

'Please,' he said, trying to keep his voice level enough to be coherent. 'She's going to die. Just let me fix her and then you can arrest me. Please.'

The Templar's brow furrowed. Finn bit his tongue to stop himself from talking. Anything he said now would just make things worse.

Finally, the man sighed and rubbed his head. 'Fine. You can help her?'

Finn nodded eagerly and held out the last remaining healing potion. His hands were shaking so badly he was afraid of dropping it.

The Templar frowned in concentration. Slowly, Finn felt the unpleasant deadening of his senses that came with a magical cleanse spread over his mind, like he was trying to think through a blanket. For once, it didn't feel deafening. All he felt was relief.

Even though she was still injured, Ariane's breathing seemed to ease immediately. Finn carefully lowered her to the tunnel floor, silently apologizing for the dirt. Not that dirt was all that important right now.

This time, when he poured the remaining potion into her mouth, her lips twitched in reaction. Finn held his breath.

She swallowed, then coughed.

'Ariane?'

Her eyelids fluttered open. She looked around groggily. Her bloodshot green eyes settled on Finn's face, and she smiled sleepily. 'Hey.'

'Hi. Hi.' He wiped his eyes and smiled back at her. The Templar was hovering awkwardly a few steps away. Finn ignored him. 'I have to go now. But Dog's here, okay? And I love you, and you're going to be okay.'

Her eyes were closed again, and her breathing was deep and regular. He kept talking anyways. 'You'll be fine. You'll be amazing.'

The Templar cleared his throat. 'We can bring her back up to the city, right?' Finn asked, without looking away from Ariane. 'And you'll let her go? She didn't do anything. I swear. It was completely my fault and I'll go to prison or get hung or anything, but you should let her go home.' He craned his head to look at the other man, suddenly nervous.

The Templar shifted uncomfortably. His face was oddly pale and drawn. 'I'll have to review it with my superior.'

'Please!' The idea of Ariane going home was the only thing that made the prospect of dying bearable. 'Truly, it was all me. She didn't-'

'I'll go do that, then.'

'No, listen. She's from the Clans, she's not even a mage- what..?

'We aren't supposed to confront blood mages on our own. Probably take me twenty minutes to get backup.' The Templar's face was expressionless. His jaw was clenched.

Finn was definitely missing something. 'You're leaving?'

'Don't say thank you,' the man warned, sounding almost defensive. 'I will be back. Twenty minutes.'

'I... but...' Finn's mouth didn't seem to be working properly. He wasn't going to be arrested. Ariane was going to be alright. There was no way he deserved this.

He tried to come up with a way to phrase this. Instead, all that came out was, 'Why?'

'I...' The man sounded Fereldan, Finn realized. More noticeable when he was uncomfortable.

'Well... my father, both my sisters, were... never mind.' The Templar folded his arms and set his face again. 'Just get out of here.'

'Thank you.' It was all he could think of to say. It sounded completely inadequate.

The Templar glowered. 'I told you not to say that.' He turned to leave.

'Who are you?'

The man hesitated, seemingly debating whether to answer. 'Carver,' he said finally. 'Ser Carver. '

Finn wished he had something he could give the man. He had nothing he could offer besides gratitude.

Ignoring his stiff back and the trembling in his leg, Finn bowed, like he had been taught as a child. 'Thank you, Ser Carver. I will never, ever forget you.'

'You're down to fifteen minutes.'

Finn looked up, suddenly feeling stupid. The Templar was already gone.

_I will pay you back_. Finn closed his eyes, locking the Templar's face into his mind. Ser Carver. _Whatever it takes, I will find a way to pay you back for this someday._

'Fifteen minutes,' he said to Dog, who was glaring down the tunnel where the light of the Templar's torch was receding. 'Can you get us out of here in fifteen minutes?'

Dog's tail wagged. With a happy bark, he trotted off down the tunnel, towards the smell of sea air. Finn lifted Ariane in his arms again.

This time, she held on to his shoulder weakly on her own. Her eyes were still closed, but there was some colour coming back into her face.

'You were right,' he whispered to her, as he set off in pursuit of Dog. 'Cities are absolutely terrible.'

* * *

Two out of three posted! I love Carver, he is the best. I'm glad I got a chance to refer to him by name.

As always, there may be typos. If there are, please let me know!


	28. Chapter 28

Ariane wasn't sure where she was. It was dark, and there was something following her. She wanted to turn around, but she knew if she saw it, she wouldn't be able to keep walking. For some reason it was very important that she keep moving.

Something pressed into her back, boring a hold between her shoulder blades. She tried to run, but her feet felt like they were mired in mud. A hand gripped her wrist like a manacle, and when she tried to pull away, her arm wouldn't move. The pressure on her back grew worse, like a spear point, or a claw, or… a tree root sticking into her back.

She opened her eyes.

Autumn leaves filled her vision, stretching up in a tangled birds-nest of branches. She blinked, but they didn't go away.

Finn's pale face appeared, and she realized it was his hand holding her wrist. His grip was slightly clammy and painfully tight.

'Hi.' He waved at her. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his hair resembled a squirrel's nest. 'You're awake. Are you okay? How do you feel?'

Her mouth was dry. 'I feel...' She tried to push hersef up onto her elbows. To her surprise, she could. 'Really great, actually.' Her hand went to the tear in her armour; instead of blood, she felt a new scar, smooth and hardly sore at all. 'Did you use a healing spell or something?'

'Yes. About six.'

'That explains it.' Something large bumped her arm, she turned to see Dog looking at her worriedly. 'Hey, you,' she said, scratching his ears. 'I owe you one, you know that?' The Mabari lay down, dropping his heavy head in her lap.

They were in a clearing of some kind, surrounded by trees. The air felt different than it had in Kirkwall. Cleaner, somehow. She could see Finn's staff and her swords leaning against a tree. Above the trees, craggy mountains were silhouetted black against the sky.

A dark cave yawned from a rock face; probably where the tunnel Dog had found let out. They were outside Kirkwall. Relief soaked through her muscles, and she rested her chin in her hand.

She squinted, and realized that the light was lower than it had been before. 'What time is it?'

Finn looked suddenly guilty. 'I have no idea,' he said apologetically, craning his head to see the sky through the trees. 'Evening?'

'I've been out since last night?' She could remember fighting, and then falling down, and then nothing. That had been in the Fade. 'What happened?' She didn't like the idea of Finn being alone that long. Not somewhere as dangerous as Kirkwall. She should have been there.

Except she had been hurt. Things were flooding back now, in a confused wave of disjointed images.

'Um, well.' Finn's big hazel eyes seemed to be focusing on everything but her. 'You were dying, and I tried healing you and that didn't work, so I tried taking you to the tunnel but that was stupid because there wasn't much point going anywhere if you were... if something was going to...' He swallowed and kept going. 'Anyways, there was a Templar patrolling –'

'What?' She had been alive again for ten minutes, and Ariane could already feel fear creeping back into her heart. 'Templar?' If Finn had killed a Templar, they would be hunted, more than they would be anyways. And if a Templar had hurt him instead, she would kill them herself. 'What did they do?'

'He saved you. I couldn't save you, but he did. ' He sounded like he was talking more to himself than her.

Ariane closed her eyes and tried to remember. 'What happened?' Nothing came back to her. There was no reason a Templar would help her.

Finn looked as confused as she felt. 'I thought he was going to arrest me, and it kind of seemed like he did too. But then he let me go. I don't know why.'

Ariane's eyes flew open. 'Stupid! You were going to get yourself arrested for me?' She resisted the urge to smack Finn on the head. She distracted herself by picking a burr out of Dog's short blond fur.

'I wasn't going to tell you,' Finn said hastily, 'but...' He chewed his lip and shrugged again. 'Well, secrets haven't gone that well for me, have they?'

Ariane sighed. Her breath steamed in the cold autumn air. The sky was truly darkening now, and the smell of pine trees made chest hurt with homesickness. Finn was stupid, far more than she would have thought possible for someone so smart. But he'd saved her, and she loved him. 'Thank you.'

'I think you might be thanking the wrong person,' he said dolefully, fidgeting on the rocky ground. 'I was the one who almost killed you, remember?'

She leaned against him, ignoring his words. Her fingers were freezing; she worked her hand into his. 'I'm so glad you're okay. I thought you might be dead or lost in the Fade somewhere.'

'I should...' Finn untangled her hand from his, gently pushing her away. 'I should go. It'll be dark soon.' He stood, awkwardly.

Ariane frowned, confused. For one thing it was already dark, and for another she didn't want him to go anywhere. 'You're leaving?' she asked, wincing at the tremor in her voice.

Finn seemed lost too. An owl hooted, and he jumped. 'I was... well, I was sort of hoping you'd tell me which way to go first, because otherwise I'll get lost. The Free Marches are sort of above Fereldan, right? Could you draw me a map or something?'

Ariane pulled her knees up to her chest. The air felt a lot colder all of a sudden. 'I don't want to draw you a map. I want to keep you. I really care about you.'

He flushed, looking as miserable as she felt. 'Um. Thank-you.'

Ariane's heart sank. 'That wasn't the answer I was hoping for.'

'Um, well.' He shifted from foot to foot, still avoiding looking at her. 'Doesn't seem like things have worked out all that well for you. I mean, how many times did you get possessed before you met me? We are looking at a one hundred percent increase in possession.'

Ariane stood, slowly. Her legs were stiff and she stumbled slightly. Finn caught her. 'There's been a hundred percent increase in demon-slaying, too,' she pointed out as she steadied herself. 'That's pretty good.'

Finn exhaled, slowly. 'Okay, that didn't come out right. Let me try again.' He took both her hands in his. 'I appear to be very bad for your physical health, and your health is something I value very highly.'

'I happen to value it very highly too,' Ariane told him, remembering how dying had felt. It wasn't something she was looking to repeat.

'Okay.' He nodded, releasing her. 'We agree on that then.'

She caught his hands before he could pull away. 'I also value being near you.'

'I think that the two might be mutually exclusive.'

She shook her head emphatically. 'No, demons are the problem. That and bad communication.' He still wasn't looking at her, so she cupped his face in her hand and tilted it so their eyes met. He smiled, awkwardly, and she felt a rush of affection followed by a familiar twinge of dread.

He could die, a voice whispered at the back of her mind. But so could she. Things could change faster than she could even imagine, and for once that made her more determined to keep caring. 'I did say I owed you one.'

'This is kind of a big one,' Finn mumbled, but he put his hand on hers and she knew he wasn't leaving.

'Don't do it again, then. You've used up your demon credit.' Something released inside her chest, a pressure she hadn't even known was there. Danger or not, they were in this together. 'No more.'

She kissed him, holding his hands as tightly as she could. It didn't feel safe, exactly, but it felt right. 'Got any other arguments?'

He looked back at her for a moment, then his face broke into a wide grin. 'Loads. I could keep going for hours. '

She grinned back. 'Please don't.' Dog nudged her knee, looking thoroughly bored. She rubbed his head, then buried her face in his shoulder. The Mabari heaved a long-suffering sigh and permitted her to hug him.

'What now then?' she asked Finn. It felt strange to be without a goal. Exhilarating and frightening all at once. The world seemed very wide all of a sudden.

'I don't know.' He sat down beside her, looking bewildered and happy. 'I was expecting you to murder me. You've disrupted my whole plan. '

'Don't look at me. The Warden thing was my plan. You saw how that went.'

Finn's smile fell off his face. 'The... the demon thing was my plan.'

She winced. 'Okay, so plans are not our forte.' Absently she stroked Dog's soft ears, thinking.

'Maybe we shouldn't plan.' She was thinking aloud, but once the idea was in her head it was hard to get rid of. She had always planned for and provided for and prepared for the world. What if instead she just… lived in it? 'We could just sort of take it as it comes.'

Finn considered this, tipping his head sideways. 'That sounds terrifying.'

An image of the future stretching in front of her, as blank and formless as the Fade had been. Except it wasn't really empty; it was waiting to be filled. And Finn would be there with her. She smiled, nervously. 'I know.'

'Okay, what do you want to do right now?'

'Go home.' The words came out of her mouth unbidden. 'My home.' As soon as she said them, her mind started working on the problems: finding her clan, explaining Finn to her mother, making sure they didn't lead the Templars back to her family, trying to explain where she had been, oh _gods, _her mother was going to have a fit when she saw Finn…

Stop, she told herself. Stop worrying. Just live.

'That sounds nice.' Finn looked apprehensive, but he smiled reassuringly when she looked at him.

She smiled back, and her worry melted away. 'You're coming too. We've got a book to deliver.'

* * *

The end! Thank you so much for reading, and especially to those who reviewed and/or favourited this story! This was my first story that was longer than a one-shot (and one of my first writing attempts in general), and I appreciate the support more than I can say. I think my writing has improved over the course of this project, and I sure enjoyed it!

I would like to write a sequel to this someday, but unfortunately all the ideas I have had for plots have been bad. Like, really terrible. Maybe once Dragon Age 3 comes out and I can finally know how badly I butchered post-DA2 canon I'll be able to follow this up :-P

Again, thank you so much for reading, and for all the feedback! I only wish I had found out sooner what great people there are on this site!


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